FIONNUALA BRITTON, IRELAND’S two-time European Cross Country champion, is in the running to be named European Women’s Athlete of the Month for December.
The Kilcoole athlete was shortlisted after she blitzed the field in freezing cold conditions in Hungary last month, becoming the first senior women to retain her continental crown.
British pair Jess Coulson and Hannah Walker are also among the 10 nominees selected by an expert panel before voting by the public, the media and a group of expert statisticians. The poll closes on 18 January.
Closer to home, 28-year-old Britton was named today as The Irish Times / Irish Sports Council Sportswoman of the Month for December, continuing an excellent start to the new year following her win at the Bupa Great Cross Country in Edinburgh last weekend.
Her next major appointment will be in Bydgoszcz, Poland in March where she will bid to become Ireland’s first World Cross Country champion since Sonia O’Sullivan’s double-gold success in 1998.
