Fantastic fifth place for Sinéad Diver in New York City Marathon

Sinéad Diver crosses the finish line in New York City Marathon in fifth place 2:26.23

Sinéad Diver ran a fantastic race today to finish fifth in the New York City Marathon. The Belmullet native crossed the line in 2:26.23 – just three minutes behind winner Jepkosgei (Kenya) 2:23.38.

Jepkosgei was a few seconds outside Margaret Okayo’s 2003 course record 2:22.31, with four times New York winner Mary Keitany in second place.

Similar to the London Marathon last April (7th in 2:24.11 pb), Sinead led a group early on as they settled into a sensible pace on this recognised tough course.

As the race developed she was at 10 miles in 55 minutes and halfway in 72, and never out of the top 10. She gradually worked her way up through the field reaching 20 miles at 1:51 and maintaining even pace.

Her amazing fifth place performance – two seconds behind Nancy Kiprop (Kenya) – confirmed her marathon status. She finished ahead of many top marathoners with the first USA runner Desiree Linden just behind her in 6th.

Her achievement underlines a year of excellent results and a number of pbs at a range of distances.

It marks a significant step on her objective to represent Australia in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics – now just nine months away.

In an all-time Irish-born marathon list context, her 2:26.23 time is over 20 seconds better than Fionnuala McCormack’s pb last month on the much faster Chicago course (2:26.47) where Brigid Kosgei (2:14) broke the world record.

As always Sinéad’s New York City marathon race statistics tell the story – see below.

Congratulations Sinéad!

Sinéad Diver with the leading group after 5k