Four years ago, Keely Hodgkinson went from being an unknown teenager to an overnight sensation by claiming glory at the European Indoor Championships. Next week Innes Fitzgerald, another 18-year-old British star, will hope to repeat the trick after being named in her first British senior squad.
Fitzgerald, who recently smashed Zola Budd’s national under-20 indoor 3,000m record by 16 seconds, joins Olympic 1500m bronze medallist Georgia Hunter Bell and world indoor pole vault champion Molly Caudery in a 44-strong British squad for Apeldoorn in the Netherlands.
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However, despite her tender years Fitzgerald, who is studying sport and exercise science at Exeter University, has already made plenty of headlines – most notably in 2023 when, as a 16-year-old, she turned down the chance to compete for Britain in the world cross-country championships in Australia because of her concerns for the environment over flying such a long way.
“When I started running, the prospect of me competing in the world cross country championships would have seemed merely a dream,” she wrote in a letter to Athletics Weekly. “However, the reality of the travel fills me with deep concern,”
“I was just nine when the Cop21 Paris climate agreement was signed. Now, eight years on, global emissions have been steadily increasing, sending us on a path to climate catastrophe.”
“One race will not cause too much of a problem,” she added. “I feel I can have a successful athletics career without leaving a huge carbon footprint.”
Her eco-friendly credentials have led to her being labelled “the Greta Thunberg of sport”, which were further enhanced when it emerged that in December 2022 she took more than 20 hours to travel to the European Cross Country Championships in Turin from her home in Devon.
That included an overnight coach to Lille and a train to Turin via Paris. Meanwhile Fitzgerald and her family also took folding bikes to ride between stations to keep costs down. However she later admitted that the journey had slightly affected her performance after she finished fourth.
But Fitzgerald has gone from strength to strength since, winning back to back European U-20 cross country championships and running the eighth fastest 3,000m time in Europe this year behind another Briton, Melissa Courtney-Bryant.
Courtney-Bryant will be favourite for the 3,000m in Apeldoorn, especially in the absence of Laura Muir, who sustained a calf injury at the British trials on Saturday. The Olympic 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson is also out, having torn her hamstring earlier this month.
Despite those absences the head coach of UK Athletics, Paula Dunn, predicted that a team with several stars and young athletes, would be battling for several medals.
“Historically, this has been a championship in which the Great Britain and Northern Ireland team has thrived, but it has also been a crucial way for athletes to step into the major championship arena for the first time,” she said.
“As we begin the LA Olympic and Paralympic cycle it is great to see a team that combines World and Olympic medallists alongside a number of developing athletes who are making their debut. I am looking forward to the squad raising to the challenge, achieving PBs, reaching finals and battling for medals in Apeldoorn.”
