At the halfway point in the marathon Fionnuala McCormack and Sinead Diver were side by side: Diver in an Australian vest, her fingernails painted in green, white and gold; McCormack in the green singlet of the place Diver left 19 years ago, a young emigrant looking for a new life, with no running done and none in mind. How McCormack got here is not difficult to explain; for the guts of the last 20 years no athlete has represented Ireland more often than the Wicklow woman: on the track, on the road, cross-country. In December McCormack gave birth to her second child, and this was her first race since then. Her qualifying time for these Olympics, though, had been chilling in the fridge for two

Source: The Times August 07, 2021 23:00 UTC