Sinead Diver runs 2:34 in Melbourne Marathon

Chivito550

I posted this in the results page but thought it might get lost there and it deserves it's own thread as it's a great story.

Sinead Diver finished second in 2:34:15. For those who don't know of her, she's 37 years of age, a mother, and only took up running about 4-5 years ago or so. She's been living in Melbourne since her early 20's, but was born and raised in Ireland. That time would put her 3rd in Ireland this year and 8th fastest Irish woman in history. As she is not a registered Irish athlete this time won't show up in the rankings, but definitely something for Ankrom and co. to get on ASAP before Australia get there first.

Here's more info on her: http://www.theweeklyreviewbayside.co...or-debut-race/

Hard Worker

Also, Mark Kirwan 2:23:17

rom

There was a UK athlete recently that lives in Australia that took part in the commonwealth games. As it was a home event they had to pay their own travel costs. Don't know where AI would stand on that especially with grants being cut and as low as they are currently.

Working link
http://tinyurl.com/luugw6j

Chivito550

rom wrote: »

There was a UK athlete recently that lives in Australia that took part in the commonwealth games. As it was a home event they had to pay their own travel costs. Don't know where AI would stand on that especially with grants being cut and as low as they are currently.

Working link
http://tinyurl.com/luugw6j

World Champs in Beijing next year. Closer to Melbourne flight wise than from Dublin. So if they want to pick her there's no excuse. Whether she would choose Ireland over Australia though I have no idea. She has lived there for years after all.

pansophelia

Delighted to see this! There was a fantastic interview with her in the Western People newspaper a couple of years ago, after she had some half marathon success.I've been wondering how she was getting on. Will see if I can find it.

thirstywork2

2.19 for Frazer in Chicago also.

Krusty_Clown

Sinead ran 2:31:37, to take 1.5 minutes off of her PB in Nagoya, Japan, which according to Feidhlim Kelly gives her the 5th Irish all-time female marathon time. Fantastic achievement.

snailsong

Here's a good article about Sinead's marathon from the Mayo AC website.

http://www.mayoac.com/sinead-diver-fifth-time-irish-marathon-list/

Edit, I can't post as a link on the mobile site.

martyboy48

link here

Some performance

Chivito550

Sinead Diver selected by Australia for her second consecutive Worlds at the age of 40. Tremendous achievement. What an own goal that was by Athletics Ireland letting her slip through the net like that. She's way better than anyone we have here, excluding Fionnuala, and even at that, it would be pretty close.

average_runner

Chivito550 wrote: »

Sinead Diver selected by Australia for her second consecutive Worlds at the age of 40. Tremendous achievement. What an own goal that was by Athletics Ireland letting her slip through the net like that. She's way better than anyone we have here, excluding Fionnuala, and even at that, it would be pretty close.

In fairness she doesn't live here anymore or compete here.
So running for Australia is the correct thing to do.

Hope she does well.

Chivito550

average_runner wrote: »

In fairness she doesn't live here anymore or compete here.
So running for Australia is the correct thing to do.

Hope she does well.

Couldn't disagree more. Just because one might live abroad for many years doesn't make somebody any less Irish. There is no "correct thing to do". She is attached to both countries. It was a very difficult personal decision which was made easy by AAI setting a ridiculous standard for the marathon for the Beijing 2015 World Championships so they wouldn't have to send anybody.

After her 21st place in Beijing her next priority was to find a bar to watch the Mayo match. She's as Irish as anybody who competes for us here, and way more so than the importees we have brought in over the past few years.

Great inspiration for people taking up sport late. AAI could have used her story as a selling point for our sport. They dropped the ball I'm afraid.

average_runner

Chivito550 wrote: »

Couldn't disagree more. Just because one might live abroad for many years doesn't make somebody any less Irish. There is no "correct thing to do". She is attached to both countries. It was a very difficult personal decision which was made easy by AAI setting a ridiculous standard for the marathon for the Beijing 2015 World Championships so they wouldn't have to send anybody.

After her 21st place in Beijing her next priority was to find a bar to watch the Mayo match. She's as Irish as anybody who competes for us here, and way more so than the importees we have brought in over the past few years.

Great inspiration for people taking up sport late. AAI could have used her story as a selling point for our sport. They dropped the ball I'm afraid.

I never said she wasn't Irish. But she never trained here or ran for a club here. All the backing she got is from the Aussies.

Also I believe we need to be funding the people that promote the sport in Ireland, ie attending certain events in Ireland that promote running to the new and up and coming younger generation.

Krusty_Clown

Chivito550 wrote: »

She's way better than anyone we have here, excluding Fionnuala, and even at that, it would be pretty close.

Sinead is fantastic, but I still think there's a wide gap between the two athletes, but hopefully the world champs will see them both going head to head and achieving great results (assuming Fionnuala is targeting the marathon, and gets sent).

On the subject of Sinead's Australian representation (you may know better), but I'd hazard a guess that some of her progress could be attributed to the fact that she is representing Australia (funding, facilities, travel, opportunity), and had she instead been a distant runner (no pun intended) representing Ireland, would have found it more difficult to make as much progress. Not at all trying to belittle her achievement, just saying that she's had greater opportunity with Australia than she would have had with Ireland.

Chivito550

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Sinead is fantastic, but I still think there's a wide gap between the two athletes, but hopefully the world champs will see them both going head to head and achieving great results (assuming Fionnuala is targeting the marathon, and gets sent).

On the subject of Sinead's Australian representation (you may know better), but I'd hazard a guess that some of her progress could be attributed to the fact that she is representing Australia (funding, facilities, travel, opportunity), and had she instead been a distant runner (no pun intended) representing Ireland, would have found it more difficult to make as much progress. Not at all trying to belittle her achievement, just saying that she's had greater opportunity with Australia than she would have had with Ireland.

I think Fionnuala is doing the 10000m in London which I still believe is her best event.

Both their PBs are pretty much identical, though Fionnuala has run her best races in championships (though could argue the same for Diver in Beijing in hot and humid conditions). The one non championship marathon Fionnuala ran was poor by her ability. I think you're right though in terms of potential. Fionnuala has ability to hit 2:26/2:27. We'll see how she fares in Berlin which I've heard is her target.

Not sure how much funding she gets in Australia, if any. Athletics is as tiny there as it is here, and they have to battle with more minority sports than we have to here. Facilities and climate would be better. Funny you mention travel though. Sonia wrote a piece awhile back about her daughter Sophie, saying she'd like to see her represent Ireland rather than Australia simply down to the better opportunities an athlete has living in Europe, rather than far away in a different hemisphere.

Regardless of everything, it's crazy that we didn't make more of an effort to have her run for us, given the funds wasted on the likes of Tori Pena and Jennifer Carey (who mysteriously disappeared back into thin air, as swiftly as she appeared from it).

RayCun

Were funds spent on Tori Pena and Jennifer Carey, other than the money to send them to championships? I presumed any time they appeared in Ireland, their adopted club was paying.

(yes, pretty sure McCormack is doing the track 10 and autumn marathon)

Chivito550

RayCun wrote: »

Were funds spent on Tori Pena and Jennifer Carey, other than the money to send them to championships? I presumed any time they appeared in Ireland, their adopted club was paying.

(yes, pretty sure McCormack is doing the track 10 and autumn marathon)

Article here from 2014 which says Pena was dropped from the funding list. So she was definitely receiving funding. For how long exactly, I don't know.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/total-of-18-athletes-receive-maximum-podium-grants-of-40-000-1.1692040?mode=amp

RayCun

Chivito550 wrote: »

Article here from 2014 which says Pena was dropped from the funding list. So she was definitely receiving funding. For how long exactly, I don't know.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/total-of-18-athletes-receive-maximum-podium-grants-of-40-000-1.1692040?mode=amp

the article suggests that was the first year when AAI had control over the carding scheme

TFBubendorfer

Chivito550 wrote: »

Couldn't disagree more. Just because one might live abroad for many years doesn't make somebody any less Irish. There is no "correct thing to do". She is attached to both countries.

It is rather difficult to live in one country and represent another one. You feel a bit isolated from the entire team, you can't attend team meetings or training camps and you will always be travelling to races on your own and on your own expenses.

I think representing Australia makes an awful lot more sense for Sinead, no matter how Irish she might feel.

OOnegative

Ran 2.33.00 this morning in very windy conditions going by reports at the Saitama Marathon.

OOnegative

Won the Oceania Half Marathon title Sunday in a new PB of 1.09.53.

Testosterscone

OOnegative wrote: »

Won the Oceania Half Marathon title Sunday in a new PB of 1.09.53.

Split two of the top US marathon runners also Sara Hall and Laura Thweatt both of whom ran PB's

Laura is former US Cross Country Champion and a 2.25 marathon runner (6th fastest American all time)

Safiri

Sinead broke Deena Kastors masters half marathon World Record at the weekend running another big PB of 69:20 to win the Australian Championships

Krusty_Clown

Safiri wrote: »

Sinead broke Deena Kastors masters half marathon World Record at the weekend running another big PB of 69:20 to win the Australian Championships

That's pretty incredible - and would put her firmly in the all-time Ireland Half Marathon performance lists (which unfortunately don't seem to be tracked by AI. To put it into perspective, Fionnuala McCormack has run 70:44 (though I don't think she'd have trained specifically for the distance), Sonia has a PB of 67:19, and Catherina McKiernan just behind with 67:50. So it may be the third best Irish half marathon performance, by an Irish born female. Based on her half marathon times and her marathon history, you have to think that she has the potential to be the second fastest female Irish-born marathon runner ever (it'll be a long, long time before anyone challenges Catherina McKiernan's achievements). And to do it all as a master.... outstanding.

spc78

Good 50min interview with her on the Australian 'Inside Running' podcast 2 weeks ago...worth a listen.

ultrapercy

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

That's pretty incredible - and would put her firmly in the all-time Ireland Half Marathon performance lists (which unfortunately don't seem to be tracked by AI. To put it into perspective, Fionnuala McCormack has run 70:44 (though I don't think she'd have trained specifically for the distance), Sonia has a PB of 67:19, and Catherina McKiernan just behind with 67:50. So it may be the third best Irish half marathon performance, by an Irish born female. Based on her half marathon times and her marathon history, you have to think that she has the potential to be the second fastest female Irish-born marathon runner ever (it'll be a long, long time before anyone challenges Catherina McKiernan's achievements). And to do it all as a master.... outstanding.

Also she only started to run aged 34. How fast would she be had she ran through her prime years?(or would it matter?). Her upward trend is astonishing. She dipped under 32 for 10k recently also.

pansophelia

Sinead Diver just won the Melbourne marathon in 2:25:17 - phenomenal!

Tigerandahalf

pansophelia wrote: »

Sinead Diver just won the Melbourne marathon in 2:25:17 - phenomenal!

Catherina McKiernan's marathon PB is 2.22:23 according to the IAAF records.

Interesting article here from Sonia on her potential for improvement.
https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/other-sports/sonia-o-sullivan-why-is-ireland-s-best-marathon-runner-representing-australia-1.3642596

Think Diver is now the 2nd fastest Irish female marathon runner in history.

From Athletics Ireland site -


1 2:22:23
NR

Catherina McKiernan
30 Nov 69

165/48

1 Delta Amsterdam
1 Nov 1998

2 2:28:07
Carey May
19 Jul 59

1 Osaka
27 Jan 1985

3 2:29:01
Sonia O'Sullivan
28 Nov 69

175/55

8 Flora London
17 Apr 2005

4 2:31:22
Fionnuala McCormack
24 Sep 84

158/45

20 OG Rio de Janeiro
14 Aug 2016

5 2:32:51
Lizzie Lee
22 May 80

17 BMW Berlin
27 Sep 2015

6 2:32:56
Regina Joyce-Bonney
7 Feb 57

7 Scottsdale AZ
4 Dec 1982

7 2:33:28
Nicola Duncan
15 Mar 82

1 Virgin London
13 Apr 2014

8 2:33:59
Marie Davenport
24 Jan 75

16 ING New York NY
6 Nov 2005

9 2:34:15
Sinead Diver
17 Feb 77

2 Melbourne
12 Oct 2014

10 2:34:19
Maria McCambridge
10 Jul 75

174/55

2 SSE Dublin
27 Oct 2014

Working class heroes

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/star-runner-sinead-diver-picks-up-40000-after-smashing-melbourne-marathon-record/news-story/f7eb8c5aff6107fb3305261807285120

TFBubendorfer

Working class heroes wrote: »

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/star-runner-sinead-diver-picks-up-40000-after-smashing-melbourne-marathon-record/news-story/f7eb8c5aff6107fb3305261807285120

Another good article here:
https://www.fastrunning.com/events-and-races/race-reports/irish-born-sinead-diver-wins-melbourne-marathon/20258

2:25 :eek:

Chivito550

Can we start talking about the idiocy of AAI for letting her slip through the net?

3 years ago I wrote this piece when many didn’t care.

http://therunningreview.com/divers-coach-they-went-well-out-of-their-way-to-make-it-difficult/

It was a howler of a decision then, and it’s a howler now.

She’s easily one of the most inspirational stories in the history of Irish athletics.

What a lost opportunity.