Sinead Diver is a software engineer and mother-of-two who, at the age of 45, just broke Benita Willis’s longstanding Australian marathon record in a time of 2:21:34. It topped a stellar 18 months for Diver, who also finished 10th at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Indisputably one of Australia’s top athletes, Diver faced a battle to be taken seriously both here and in her native Ireland, with many in the athletics world writing her off as too old to be the real thing.
Sinead Diver broke Benita Willis’s Australian marathon record in Valencia, last December.Credit:Joe Armao
Georgina Robinson: In your record-breaking run, in Valencia, you took a minute off the national record and almost three off your personal best. Did you know that was brewing?
Sinead Diver: That’s difficult to answer. The record is something that I’ve been targeting for a while and I’ve had a couple of goes it but haven’t succeeded. In London during COVID they had a special London marathon. I was in really good shape before that and I was going to aim for the record there but the weather was shocking and it just wasn’t a good race. In Nagoya earlier this year I tried again but it was warmer than expected and I ended up not finishing. So, leading into Valencia, I was aiming to break the record but I knew that it would just depend on how the day panned out and if we got lucky with weather. Everything in my training indicated that I could do it but I’ve been in that position before and failed. It was really good that everything lined up for this one.
GR: There’s some great clips of you crossing the finish line. Were they interviewing the winner and you’re captured in the background?
SD: Yes! Even though I broke the Australian record I was still only placed 11th or 12th. After the first three women come across the line, they don’t really care after that. They were half recording the finish and interviewing the girl who had won. When I was crossing the line the camera went back to the finish line and they caught me. I was so excited and wanted to hug somebody but there was nobody there that I knew. It was all Spanish officials and they were ushering me out of the finishing area and I felt like shaking somebody saying ‘do you know what just happened?’.
GR: I’ve read a number of remarks from you about age being no barrier – do you think this result proves that definitively?
SD: I think so. I’m 45 and running better than I ever have. I started late in the sport so that’s an advantage for me, I haven’t the same wear and tear on my body that other athletes have. Often athletes feel under pressure to achieve everything in that window of their mid-20s to – at the latest – mid-30s, but I believe you have a window of opportunity and you don’t need to start in your teens or 20s, you can just start a bit later and still have success in running. I think there’s a lot of women now who are proving that, running into their late 30s and 40s. It’s a lot more common now than when I started out.
GR: It is well documented that Athletics Ireland rejected you when you approached them about running for Ireland. Do you think they’re ruing that call back in 2014?
SD: I would hope so. It was a big mistake and I believe they just didn’t think it through. They saw a 38-year-old woman who ran a pretty good time but didn’t really look into my background and just ruled me out. They’ve been getting a lot of grief since then, on social media and all of that, so I’m sure they do. But they haven’t ever reached out or contacted me, so who knows.
GR: Did you face the same challenges here, with Athletics Australia?
SD: There was a few years where I wasn’t accepted as an athlete because I took a different path into athletics. I felt I wasn’t seen as an athlete, just somebody they thought would disappear again pretty soon. There was quite a while where my performances weren’t acknowledged and I was told I wouldn’t get funding, because of my age. But so much has changed since then, a lot of the people who were there then have moved on and it’s a whole group of people I’ve connected with now and who are very supportive. There is none of that age discrimination now.
Diver racing for Australia at the 2015 athletics world championships after being turned down by Ireland.Credit:AP
GR: Was there a performance that helped put that to bed?
SD: I think in 2018 I had my breakout year. I started running really well. I broke five Australian road records, one of those being the Melbourne marathon and at that point I think there was a feeling of ‘we can’t continue to ignore her, because she has proven herself and she isn’t going anywhere’. Then I was accepted and it’s really improved from there.
GR: Is it true that physical activity for girls wasn’t encouraged in the schools you attended and you didn’t start running until you came to Australia as a 25-year-old?
SD: My school was very much focused on academics and PE was seen as a hobby and something you did out of school. In my high school it was the same outlook and girls weren’t encouraged to play sport. We eventually got a basketball team together but we were one of the few groups of girls who did that. We also fought for girls to play Gaelic football and I remember having strong opinions about that. We actually did get it across the line only for me to realise that I’m terrible at Gaelic football! But I had to play anyway because I’d thrown such a strop about it. Luckily my younger sister Grainne was really good at it and they continued it from then on.
GR: How did you find running, then?
SD: When I came to Australia, running was the easiest way to keep fit. My younger sister was part of a corporate race around the Tan in Melbourne and they needed someone to fill in. I was on maternity leave and lived close by, so I filled in. One of the guys there said ‘you’re really fast at running for someone who doesn’t do it competitively’ and he suggested I join a running group. Things took off from there really. I joined the local athletic club and started running at state level, made it to nationals and won a few national titles. After Dara, my second son, was born, I did my first marathon. I was definitely better at the longer stuff and qualified for the world championships the following year.
Diver running around her local neighbourhood in Melbourne.Credit:Joe Armao
GR: That is a steep rise to the top.
SD: That’s a condensed version over a long period of time. I was 33 when I started and I was 38 when I went to the world champs for the first time. Even though I rattle it off, it took a time to progress to that level.
GR: Without a background in racing, at a world athletics championships, were you a deer in headlights?
SD: It was almost an advantage for me. I was so naive that I didn’t overthink anything. Whereas now I think a lot more about all the little things and I can get more stressed out about events and racing. Then, I was just happy to be there.
GR: Apart from Valencia, would you say finishing in the top 10 at the Tokyo Olympics was your biggest success?
SD: That was a huge achievement for me. That was my first Olympics, but at a world championships to place top 20 is a really good achievement. In my mind I would love to place, but I didn’t think that was realistic, so I thought a top 10 would be amazing. A top 15 or 20 also would have been great. I was so excited about it and it was a surprise, because when I crossed the finish line I didn’t realise what position I was in and then, just before I got interviewed, somebody told me I came 10th. I was really happy with that.
GR: Tell me about your experience with the commentators at the London marathon in 2019?
SD: I had travelled from Australia, it was a big deal for me, and I had a time in mind that I wanted to run. The elite pack took off and were running really slowly and I thought ‘this doesn’t suit me, I need to go at my pace from the start’. So I ended up leading the race for 23km, which was unexpected, but I had my plan in mind and I didn’t want anyone to sabotage that. The commentators seemed to take offence to that, suggesting that, at 42, who did I think I was, leading the London marathon. I felt they were slagging me off a lot during the race and then, when the group of Africans went past me, one of [the commentators] said ‘well finally, the class has come to the front’. I thought wow, that was such a terrible thing to say. Then they made a comment that I was going backwards, but I ended up running a PB and it was a really strong race for me, a really steady race, I paced it really well. There’s been a bit of that, but not so much anymore.
GR: You’ve finally out-run that attitude, excuse the pun.
SD: I think I’ve proven myself, and hopefully made it easier for other women who are trying to do a similar thing.
GR: Did you use it as motivation?
SD: It wasn’t until a few weeks later that I watched the commentary back, because a few people had made comments to me (about it) … I was actually really upset about it for a while but then I used it as motivation, definitely.
GR: In Valencia, you took almost three minutes off your personal best. Has that performance made you recalibrate what is a realistic goal for you, with qualification now assured for the Paris Olympics?
SD: For sure. I knew, from training, that I was in PB territory for it, but as I said, you can never tell. It’s really important to get good weather for a marathon because, if it’s windy, it just wears you down and really impacts your time. When I got my PB in London in 2019 it was windy that day, so I knew I could run faster, but it took me until now to prove that. Now that I’ve run 2:21, of course I want to go faster again, but I’ll have to see how training goes. Even if I’ve run a second a kilometre faster, I could run a 2:20. I think that will be my next goal. I’ll see how training goes. I’m not going to start a race with that goal unless training has indicated that I can do that.
GR: After your success in Valencia and Tokyo, what’s next for you? I understand your Valencia time counts as a qualifier for the Paris Olympics.
SD: Having this race count towards Paris take a lot of pressure off and opens up more race opportunities for me this year. I haven’t decided what my next marathon will be yet but I will aim to race one in the first half of the year and then another later in the year. I’ll also race some half-marathons and 10kms throughout the year.
