Richard Donovan completes his second Transcontinental Run - Athletics Ireland
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Richard Donovan completes his second Transcontinental Run

28 September 2016

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Athletics Ireland would like to extend its heartiest congratulations to Richard Donovan on completing his second transcontinental run. Richard most recently completed a 3,000km run across Europe from Istanbul to Rotterdam, having already run 5,000km across North America from San Francisco to New York last year. The Galway-man, who is well known for organising some of the most extreme marathons on the planet, has been an outstanding ambassador for Irish ultra running over the past decade. He has competed internationally for Ireland and was Chairman of Ultrarunning Ireland from 2005 - 2012, during which time he progressed the sport to the highest international standards. He  sponsored all of the Irish international teams competing at Home Nations, European and World Championships, and also brought Home Nations 100km and World 50km Final events to Ireland as well as arranging, organising and sponsoring the official Trail World Championships in Connemara in 2011. The latter event, which was broadcast globally, resulted in Richard and his two-time Olympian brother Paul receiving an Order of Merit from the International Association of Ultra Runners (IAU).  Richard has been Race Director of two Commonwealth Championships at ultra running and was elected to the position of Executive Director of the IAU in 2012, the world governing body for the sport. Away from ultra running, he has been a great fund-raising friend to Irish Schools Athletics including bringing double Olympic Champion David Rudisha to Galway in 2013 , where he visited dozens of Galway Schools and joined school kids for a series of 800m runs at Dangan track Richard also arranged  the first sub 4-minute mile run in Galway.  We would like to take this opportunity to thank Richard for his ongoing contributions to Irish athletics and we wish him the best of luck with his proposed Trans Antarctic Run, and continued success with his world class events, including the North Pole Marathon, Antarctic Ice Marathon, Volcano Marathon and the World Marathon Challenge, where participants run 7 marathons on 7 continents in 7 days!

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