Innes FitzGerald

Innes FitzGerald (born 6 April 2006) is a British track and field athlete and cross country runner. She is the 2023 European Cross Country U20 champion.

Early life
FitzGerald hails from Beer, Devon and attended Axe Valley Academy. Her parents own a smallholding on which FitzGerald has worked.

2022
She runs for the Exeter Harriers and is trained by Gavin Pavey. She won the Mini London Marathon in October 2022. FitzGerald set a new under-17 record for 3,000 metres, and in December 2022 finished fourth in the under-20s European Cross Country Championships in Turin, competing as a seventeen year-old. To avoid flying to the competition, FitzGerald had taken a 20-hour coach and train journey from Exeter to Italy.

2023
In January 2023, FitzGerald turned down the opportunity to compete at the 2023 World Athletics Cross Country Championships in Bathurst, Australia because of concerns she holds about contributing to climate change. In a letter to UK Athletics she wrote that “The reality of the travel fills me with deep concern”, adding that "I was just nine when the COP21 Paris Climate agreement was signed. Now, eight years on, and global emissions have been steadily increasing, sending us on a path to climate catastrophe. Turning this around is only possible through transformational change from collective and personal action."

In March 2023, FitzGerald won the English Schools cross country title. She won the senior girls 3000m at the English Schools Championship in July 2023, clocking 9:16.14. In 2023, she also defended her Mini London Marathon title and won the England under-20 3000m title.

She ran a new personal best at the BMC Watford Gold Standard meet on the 12 July 2023 when she clocked 4:15.04 for the 1500m.

In October 2023, Fitzgerald was announced as the winner of the BBC Green Sports Awards 'Young Athlete of the Year' for her refusal to fly to the World Cross Country Championships taking place in Australia. Selected for the 2023 European Cross Country Championships in Brussels in December 2023, she won the women's U20 race and also claimed gold as part of the British squad in the team race. The following week, she finished third behind Laura Muir and Georgia Bell, running the 3000m indoors at the Christmas Classic in Cardiff.

2024
On 20 January 2024, she won the U20 London International Cross Country event. In March 2024, she won the UK U20 Inter-Counties Cross Country Championships at Wollaton Park. However, after the race she said she would not take her automatic place at the 2024 World Athletics Cross Country Championships that month, due to travel time and the impact it would have on her A-Levels study. However, she was named in the British team for the event. She finished as leading European, in 17th place, as Britain finished fifth in the team U20 event.

In May 2024, she was selected to represent England over 3000 metres at the Loughborough International and won the 3000 metres in 9:08.91.