“It means everything to do this here in Birmingham,” said Donnelly, formerly a cross country runner, of her marathon achievement.<\/p>\n
“I’ve never done a home champs before so to have the crowd shout ‘Abbie Donnelly’ was an incredible experience.”<\/p>\n
With Vainio striking out alone early in the race, team-mates Donnelly and Wilson had each other for company in the chasing pack for much of the race, which the bronze medallist said was a “massive” help.<\/p>\n
It was Vindics-Toth who made the decisive break, before Donnelly followed, holding on through an uphill climb to the finish line and crossing 12 seconds after the Hungarian.<\/p>\n
“I can’t believe it to be honest,” said Donnelly, 29. “That was an amazing experience and a relief to get round the course, it was so hilly.<\/p>\n
“I think it was a case of being really cautious at the start, especially the first half, knowing those hills would slowly catch up with you. Even the downhills as well, I think my quads have gone!”<\/p>\n
Donnelly won two team golds at the European Cross Country Championships before moving to the roads and winning a team gold in the half-marathon at her first European Championships in Rome in 2024.<\/p>\n
“It’s so exciting, we were talking about it yesterday about how we’d love to get a gold,” Donnelly said. “I’m so proud of the whole team. They all ran amazingly.<\/p>\n
“I love the people in this sport. I love the friends I’ve made. I love the feeling once you’ve finished the race.<\/p>\n
“The whole atmosphere of running, it’s such a friendly group. It’s such a privilege to be part of the team.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“It means everything to do this here in Birmingham,” said Donnelly, formerly a cross country runner, of her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-595047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}