Linda Byrne represented Ireland in the women’s marathon at the 2012 London Olympic Games, finishing 66th of 118 starters in a time of 2:37:13 and becoming the first Irish woman home.

From Dublin, Byrne is a member of Dundrum South Dublin AC and studied Sports Science at Dublin City University. She began competing as a teenager, running in the World Cross Country Championships at the age of 15, and initially focused on track and cross country before transitioning to the marathon at the suggestion of her coach Gerry Fitzpatrick. She made a spectacular marathon debut at the 2011 Dublin Marathon, running 2:36:23 to become the first Irish female Olympic marathon A-standard qualifier since 1988 and the first Irish woman home.

She also won the Flora Women’s Mini Marathon in June 2012 in 33:30 in the lead-up to the Games. She was part of the Irish team that won gold at the 2012 European Cross Country Championships in Budapest that December. London was her only second marathon. In 2016, with characteristic courage, she spoke publicly about the mental health difficulties she experienced in the years following the Games – a period of darkness she traced to the loss of the identity and structure that elite sport had provided – in the hope of helping others in similar situations.