Catherina McKiernan won the World Cross Country Championships four consecutive times from 1993 to 1996 – the first athlete ever to achieve that feat – and set an Irish marathon record of 2:22:23 in Amsterdam in 1998 that remains the Irish record.

Her Olympic career began at the 1992 Barcelona Games, where she was eliminated in the 3,000 metres heats. From Cornafean, Co. Cavan, she came to national attention in 1988 when, racing barefooted, she won the senior girls’ title in the All-Ireland Schools Cross Country Championships at Dungarvan. She had already finished 2nd at the 1992 World Cross Country Championships in Boston before arriving at Barcelona, where she travelled unburdened by ambition or expectation: ‘No one expected me to do anything, and I knew myself I wasn’t going to do anything. So I made sure I made the most of it.’

The following decade confirmed her as one of the greatest distance runners Ireland has produced, winning Paris and Berlin marathons and finishing a superb 8th at the Atlanta 1996 Olympics in the marathon.