Claire Fagan wins 2020 Special Achievement award

Mullingar athlete Claire Fagan is the winner of one of two Special Achievement awards up for grabs at this year’s Westmeath Examiner Sports Awards, sponsored by the Mullingar Park Hotel, Home Instead Midlands and ORS Ireland.

With all that has happened since, it seems like an age since Claire represented Ireland at the European Cross Country in Lisbon in 2019, but despite the havoc wreaked on sport by Covid-19, the Dublin City University student continued to set the bar in 2020.

This award primarily recognises Claire’s achievement at the Home Countries and Celtic International in Stirling, Scotland in January of last year, where she won gold for Ireland in the U23 Women’s 8,000m.

Her excellent form continued throughout the year, in which she enjoyed success in the 800m at the National Indoors, and at the National Senior T&F in August.

Coming from a family steeped in Mullingar Shamrocks GAA tradition, Claire is also a long-time member of the Mullingar Harriers Athletic Club, and later this year, she becomes the latest wearer of that famous maroon singlet to travel to the United States on an athletics scholarship.