Innes FitzGerald may not even have pulled on a British vest for the first time just yet but already she is determined to make full use of the platform it promises to bring.
Ahead of her major championship debut at this week’s European Indoors in Apeldoorn, the 18-year-old used her first media engagement as a senior international athlete to reaffirm the environmental commitment that - along with her precocious running talent - first put her on the radar as a junior two years ago.
It was then that FitzGerald turned down the chance to represent Britain at age-group level at the World Cross Country Championships, unable to justify the environmental impact of flying to Australia for one 20-minute race.
“I think it comes from my respect for other people,” says FitzGerald, who last month took 10 seconds off the European U20 record for 3,000m indoors. “I feel like I have a responsibility to look after people who are in the Global South or who are directly affected by extreme weather events and stuff like that.
“We’re not affected by it in the UK but I feel the pain that they’re feeling and I feel like it’s my responsibility, in a more privileged position, to help them and raise awareness.”
Though admirable, FitzGerald has had to reluctantly accept that, logistically, her stance will not always be compatible with the demands of professional sport. That lesson was learned when feeling the toll of a “crazy” 20-hour slog by bus, train and bike to reach Turin for the European Cross Country Championships in 2022. Even then, she finished fourth.
Still, FitzGerald feels guilt that family and university commitments in Exeter have left her unable to arrange her own more sustainable passage to the Netherlands this week, where she will compete alongside the likes of Olympic bronze-medal winner Georgia Hunter-Bell, though she says it is “quite gutting” that the British team are not travelling by train in the first place.
“Whenever I'm getting on a flight, it’s never easy,” she explains. "I'm always thinking, 'Oh, I shouldn't be doing this', but I know that I've got to go to these championships to fulfil my dreams as a professional athlete. So, it's just about balancing that and trying to do as much as I can in other areas of my life to try and make up for it.
“Even though I might be doing the wrong thing, just still saying that it's wrong is better than doing it and not saying it's wrong.”
Raised on a Devon farm, FitzGerald has always considered herself an “active kid” but began running only five years ago, when her sister started jogging once-a-week as part of her Duke of Edinburgh award. She soon caught the bug, but did not immediately realise her gift.
“I’d go out four or five times a week and built up some fitness,” she says. “But because I was running during lockdown and wasn’t running with anyone else, I didn’t realise it was happening. I wouldn’t race at all - I didn’t really know racing was a thing, as such.”
Only once schools re-opened and normal classes resumed did her PE teacher notice the improvement. With the 45-minute drive to the closest athletics club initially considered too far for regular commute, Parkruns plugged the gap until a number of breakthrough cross-country performances in early 2022 made FitzGerald’s talent impossible to ignore. Neither of them can quite remember the specifics of when or how, but she teamed up with Gavin Pavey, husband and coach to multiple major medalist Jo, and has progressed at a startling rate since.
After winning the European U20 cross-country title for the second year in a row in December, Fitzgerald switched focus to the indoor track, taking down that 3,000m record by running 8.40:05 in Ostrava and then benefiting from Laura Muir’s injury to earn a call-up to Apeldoorn.
“Going into the winter, I never really thought I'd have this opportunity,” she says. “I think there's not too much pressure on me because of my age and it being my first senior GB vest. So, I just want to go out there and enjoy it and hopefully get into that final. That's where I believe I belong.”
