ATHLETICS:As Fionnuala Britton arrived back from Italy yesterday with her silver medal won at the European cross country under-23 race the reaction here was still split somewhere along the lines of "not surprised" and "Fionnuala who?" - with the majority of people surely in the latter camp.

Those closest to the Wicklow athlete may have predicted her medal-winning run on Sunday, but it was a breakthrough performance nonetheless. While Britton was an outstanding junior - winning a record three successive national cross country titles - her progress in the few years since was slow and steady at best.

Yet that progress speeded up considerably in the last six months, starting with qualification for the 3,000 metres steeplechase at the European championships in Gothenburg in August. There, she improved her best to nine minutes 49.20 seconds - inside the B-standard for next summer's World championships in Osaka.

Determined to build on that summer form, Britton put the head down and opened her cross country season with a fine show in the Phoenix Park, and a few weeks later was even more impressive when winning her first international race in Tillburg, in the Netherlands. When she practically walked away with the national inter-counties title in Dungarvan the only dilemma was whether to target the under-23 race in the Europeans, newly introduced this year, or focus on the senior race. As she turns 23 next month, the timing and temptation to run the under-23 race was too great.

"I knew I had a chance of a medal," she admitted yesterday. "And in the race I kept saying I have to get a medal out of this. But it's still sinking in, really. I'm just delighted with my run, and thrilled with the way it went, that it all went right on the day. And I'm delighted as well to see so many people here to greet me."

There was nothing more she could have done to win on the day, with the powerful Turkish athlete Binnaz Uslu using her greater strength and experience to full advantage to win gold.

Britton has put her recent improvement down to careful and sensible nurturing at Dublin City University (DCU), where she is in her fourth year of a sports science degree. While still coached by her old Slí Cualann club coach Pat Diskin in Wicklow, she has clearly benefited from the advice of both Niall Moyna and Enda Fitzpatrick under DCU's scholarship scheme.

"One of the first benefits I found about DCU was having the accommodation provided right on the campus," she recently explained. "It's also very convenient to do my training run and then go straight into the gym, which is right next to the accommodation. It has worked out very well there over the last three years."

Britton has clearly made a name for herself after her performance on Sunday and organisers of the Belfast International Cross Country on January 6th yesterday announced their intention to make Britton one of their elite starters, and that will most likely be her next race. It remains to be seen if she'll then target the World Cross Country, set for Kenya next March.

Ireland, meanwhile, were desperately unlucky not to bring home a second medal from Italy, having just missed out on a podium finish in the men's under-23 team race. Although Mark Christie finished a disappointing 19th, Joe Sweeney surpassed expectations to place 13th, but the real problem was Michael Clohisey lost several places after been knocked over around one of the many tight bends, ending up 46th.

Still, they had just missed a team medal, taking fourth behind Russia, Italy and Poland - just eight points shy of bronze.