University of Exeter Sports Scholar and BSc Exercise and Sport Sciences student Innes FitzGerald has had a year that’s impossible to ignore. On the track, roads and cross country, she’s been setting records and raising the bar.
It began in the mud and grit of Antalya, Turkey, where she claimed her second consecutive European Cross Country Championships U20 title with trademark front-running dominance. Her performance helped contribute to overall team Gold for Great Britain in an emphatic win. From there, the season moved indoors, and Innes’s form only sharpened. At the Czech Indoor Gala in Ostrava, she stopped the clock at 8:40.05 for 3,000m – a new European U20 record and a mark that wiped 16 seconds off the great Zola Budd’s British best that had stood for decades.
She carried that speed onto the senior stage at the British Indoor Athletics Championships where she finished third in the 3,000m with a time of 8:52.56. Innes was then selected for the British team at the European Indoors in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, holding her own against the continent’s elite to finish eighth in the final.
Outdoors is where Innes has been the most busy – and she kept pushing. During her Diamond League debut in Stockholm, she cut her 3,000m personal best to 8:32.90, showing she’s already a force in a senior competition. She then broke yet another of Zola Budd’s European U20 records, this time in the 5,000m at the London Athletics Meet, running 14:39.56. On the 2nd of August, she finished third in the 5,000m at the 2025 UK Athletics Championships in Birmingham.
Then came the European U20 Championships in Tampere, Finland, she delivered a 5,000m masterclass, winning in 15:09.04 – more than half a minute clear of silver. She doubled up in the 3,000m, breaking a 32-year-old championship record with 8:46.39 which stood since 1993.
Next stop: the biggest stage of them all. Innes’s relentless progression has earned her a coveted spot on the British team for the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo. It’s a selection that feels less like a surprise and more like an inevitability, given the way she’s been dismantling records and dispatching rivals. For an athlete who still isn’t out of her teens, the call-up is both a reward for a season of audacity and a challenge to carry that fearless front-running to the global stage.
We would like to wish Innes all the best for the World Athletics Championships from all of us at University of Exeter Sport #BleedGreen. You can follow the coverage on the BBC from Friday 12th September. To find out more about our Sports Scholarship Scheme and how to apply as a prospective student please visit our website.