IRISH RUNNER Fionnuala Britton has vowed to return to the Olympic Stadium and attempt to ‘fix’ her Games hopes after disappointment in London tonight.
The European Cross-Country champion finished well behind the pack in the Women’s 10,000m final and was ultimately lapped by eventual winner Tirunesh Dibaba among others before the finish. Dibaba thus becomes the first track and field Olympic medal winner in these Games.
“It wasn’t what I’d hoped for or planned at all,” Britton told TheScore afterwards. “The race started off fine and I suppose it was nice to let someone else do the work for once.
“I mean in Europeans I had to go to the front and lead it and it didn’t pay off. This time I even got to sit in and it still didn’t work. But I suppose I can appreciate what the three girls tried to do — I was glad they tried to do because it suited me… even if I could have kept going the way I was it would have been a really good race for me. It started off perfect and then just fell apart.”
The 27-year-old has, at least, the consolation of more events to come: the 5,000m and the 3,000m steeplechase.
“Yeah but that was one… that was my chance to do really well,” she told Will Downing in London. “And yeah I definitely want to come back out and try and do better than I now have done but I suppose I have to go back and plan for Tuesday. And it’s nice to think that I can actually come back out and fix it.”
