The 42

FIONNUALA McCORMACK MADE history in Paris this morning as she became Ireland’s first ever five-time female Olympian.

McCormack finished 28th in the women’s marathon in a season-best time of 2:30:12, recording her third consecutive top 30 finish at the Games.

The 39-year-old Wicklow native made her Olympic debut at the Beijing Games in 2008.

Sifan Hassan took gold, a remarkable achievement on the back of her bronze medals in the 5,000m and 10,000m events.

The Ethiopian-born Dutch athlete crossed in an Olympic record time of 2:22:55 after sprinting clear of Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa to win by three seconds.

Kenya’s Hellen Obiri won bronze, with McCormack seven minutes and 17 seconds down on Hassan’s winning time.

“It wasn’t what I came here for. It was not what I envisaged at all,” McCormack told RTÉ.

“I feel like I never gave up but it wasn’t what I was hoping for really. I suppose (I was hoping for), minimum, better than I’d ever ran before and I was 20th in Rio, so I suppose better than that really.

“The course was great. We should have more courses like that maybe. Although at the end I think I would have nearly preferred more hills and less flat. I found the hills break it up and almost give you something to focus on, whereas when you’re on the flat it just feels like it’s going on forever.

“I hung on in there for as long as I could. On the first big hill I could feel I was gaining back into where I wanted to be but I don’t know, like I wasn’t in the race, which I was really hoping I would be this time.

“It’s hard when you’re in a race and just kind of watching everything move ahead of you, but the marathon is a bit like that and you have to just dig in and hold on as best you can and hopefully have something at the end to maybe make it respectable.”

McCormack was asked how she will reflect on becoming Ireland’s first ever five-time female Olympian.

“I suppose I can’t yet,” she said.

“It’s been mentioned a lot over the last while and to be honest most of the time it just makes me feel old, but I didn’t want to just be a participant in five Olympics, I wanted to perform, and I’m not sure I really did that today.

“I’ll look back on it eventually but at the moment it’s too soon. But out there on the course it was unbelievable, even the amount of people I could hear cheering for me from Wicklow and the amount of people that knew my name.

“You know it’s Irish people out there because so many people can’t pronounce my name and when I hear ‘Fionnuala’ I know I’m the only Fionnuala in the race and it is great to hear, even when you’re struggling, you almost up your game a bit because the support was unbelievable out there.”

Written by Ciarán Kennedy and originally published on The 42 whose award-winning team produces original content that you won’t find anywhere else: on GAA, League of Ireland, women’s sport and boxing, as well as our game-changing rugby coverage, all with an Irish eye. Subscribe here.