Throwback Thursday: Catherina McKiernan's 1998 London Marathon Win

On Sunday April 26th 1998, Catherina McKiernan did what very few Irish athletes have managed in one of the sport’s great city races. She won the women’s London Marathon in 2:26:26, beating Liz McColgan by 28 seconds, with Joyce Chepchumba in third. For Irish athletics, it was a seminal moment, and for McKiernan it remains the biggest road win of a career already packed with success.

What made it all the more striking was that McKiernan arrived in London not as a runner hoping for a good day, but as a genuine favourite despite it being only her second run at the distance. Her marathon debut in Berlin Marathon the previous September had been hugely impressive, winning in 2:23:44, a time that the official Berlin Marathon guide still lists as a debut record. Six weeks before London she followed that with 67:50 in Lisbon, leaving no doubt about her form. This was not novice territory. She was ready to win on the biggest stage.

McKiernan had made her mark in global athletics long before the roads became her main focus. She recorded four straight World Cross Country silver medals from 1992 to 1995, won the inaugural European Cross Country Championships in 1994, and competed at the Olympic Games in 1992 and 1996. By 1998, she was already among the top distance runners in the world. London was not a leap into the unknown. It was the next step for an athlete who had been circling one of the biggest prizes for years.

Her spring was built around London. Rather than run World Cross that year, she focused fully on marathon preparation through altitude training, later reflecting that this was the one race where she stood on the start line knowing she would win. It sounds bold, but when you stack Berlin, Lisbon, and her cross country record together, it does not come across as overconfience. Rather, it reads like a runner who knew exactly where she was at.

The race was not handed to her. McKiernan was more than a minute down at halfway and still 60 seconds behind at 18 miles before turning the race with a surge in the second half. She passed the leaders just after 20 miles, ran the second half in 72:29, and still had enough to win despite stomach trouble and difficult conditions on the course. "The first eight miles were a little bit too slow," she would later recall, who complainiing of stomach problems during the race. "The last bit was very tough but it was over quickly," McKiernan also added.

The win was not just about the clock. It was about how she got it done, and the calm authority of it once she made her move.

Catch McKiernan Approaching The Finish In The Video Below

What adds to the weight of the London victory is what came after. Later in 1998, McKiernan won Amsterdam in 2:22:23, a national record that still stands today as the Irish women’s marathon record. London Marathon organisers also brought her back in 2023 as an official starter, proof that her win has not been forgotten.

McKiernan was not just a fine athlete who had one exceptional morning. She gave Irish running a win that still stands tall in the sport’s memory, and she did it in a race everybody watched, understood, and respected. For anyone in Ireland who ever looked at a marathon as a race a home runner could compete but not quite win, McKiernan changed that thinking in one afternoon in London. Fair play to her. It was some job.