British distance runners have excelled this month with a British men’s 10km record and the fastest-ever 3000m time indoors by a junior woman
Rory Leonard and Innes FitzGerald take on the challenges of modern athletics, drawing comparisons to the legendary runners of the 1980s. Explore their journey, triumphs, and the shadows of history they aim to surpass
Congratulations to Rory Leonard for running a UK record of 27:38 in Valencia on Sunday. Since winning the European under-23 10,000m title 18 months ago, the Morpeth Harrier has gone from strength to strength under coach Andy Hobdell.
Spare a thought for Nick Rose, though, who ran 27:34 at the Crescent City Classic in 1984. Held on a point-to-point course in New Orleans, Rose’s mark has not been recognized as the British record. The winner that day, however, Mark Nenow, saw his 27:22 celebrated as a world best at the time and it remained in the World Athletics all-time rankings for years before finally having an asterisk put next to it to indicating it is ‘unratified’.
Innes FitzGerald
When Farah claimed the official UK record with 27:44 in 2010, I contacted Rose about his mark and he described the area of 10km records as “muddy waters”. He added: “If record courses have to start and finish within a certain distance, then my run in New Orleans does not qualify for record purposes. All one could say is that it is the fastest run over the 10km distance!”
Nick Rose (Mark Shearman)
Even faster than Rose and Leonard are the 27:20 clocked by Jon Brown in Pittsburgh in 1995, although the former European cross-country champion has readily admitted it was a downhill course. “It shouldn’t be considered any kind of best due to its substantial drop,” he told AW at the time. “I could do three minutes flat if I jumped out of a plane at 10,000ft!”
Hopefully, Leonard will run even quicker in the future to consign all these unratified marks to the history books.
Innes FitzGerald (Andy Cox)
FitzGerald following in the footsteps of Zola Budd
Ever since Innes FitzGerald appeared from almost nowhere to smash the UK under-17 women’s 3000m record with 8:59.67 at the SIAB Schools International in 2022, it’s been clear she is the most talented British junior of her generation.
Since then she has won two European cross-country titles and finished fourth in the world under-20 3000m last year behind three East Africans. A further measure of her ability came last weekend when she ran 8:48.30 at a BMC indoor meeting in Cardiff.
Even though she won the race by 22 seconds and the nearest man was almost a minute behind, FitzGerald’s time won’t stand as a British under-20 women’s indoor record due to it being set in a mixed-sex race.
The official British under-20 record, therefore, is still held by Zola Budd with 8:56.13 set when winning a GB vs West Germany match at Cosford in 1985.
This means FitzGerald, who doesn’t turn 19 until April, is eight seconds faster as a junior in an indoor 3000m than Budd, although what the barefoot runner from South Africa would have run in today’s super spikes is a different story.
Zola Budd wins the 1985 World Cross (Mark Shearman)
Budd’s performance in 1985 was also a UK and Commonwealth indoor record. What’s more, a few weeks later she won the world cross-country senior women’s title in Lisbon – 23 seconds ahead of Ingrid Kristiansen, who in turn went on to win the London Marathon the following month in 2:21:06.
Let’s hope FitzGerald can maintain a similar trajectory, albeit it will take a little longer to reach such lofty goals. Thriving in Gavin Pavey’s coaching group in Devon and enjoying life as a fresher at Exeter University, she certainly seems on the right path.
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