Louise Shanahan was a European Youth champion at 800m in 2013 and a European Youth Olympic finalist in 2014.

Injury then disrupted her career but she bounced back as Irish 1,500m champion in 2020 and her 800m victory at Nationals a year later (2:03.62) critically moved her up three places into the top-48 ranking that clinched her Olympic spot for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics where she finished 7th in her heat .

Louise is a PhD student of quantum physics at Cambridge and her dad Ray was also an Irish champion.