Ciara Mageean dies aged 34; 2024 European 1500m champion remembered

Ciara Mageean, the European 1500m champion who won gold at the 2024 European Championships in Rome, has died aged 34, the news emerged on Sunday. Tributes have been pouring in for the two-time Olympian who represented both Ireland and Northern Ireland and who was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer in May 2025.

An energetic child who played camogie as well as running, Mageean built a decorated junior athletics résumé. She finished third for Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Youth Games in India in 2008, won the European Youth Olympic Festival in Finland in 2009 and was second at the World Youth Championships for Ireland the same year. Mageean claimed the National Senior Indoor title at the Odyssey Arena when she was 15, finished second at the World Junior Championships in Mocton in 2010 and won silver at the European Junior Championships in Tallinn in 2011.

Injury disrupted her bid for the 2012 London Olympics and she underwent ankle surgery in 2013; the Portaferry runner returned to win the Irish 1500m title in 2014. Mageean took bronze in the 1500m at the 2016 European Championships in Amsterdam but did not reach the final at the Rio Olympics. In 2017 she split with long-time coach Jerry Kiernan and moved to work with Steve Vernon in Manchester.

Mageean also represented Ireland in cross-country, with an all-out racing style on display at the 2016 European Championships in Italy. She holds Irish records in the 800m, 1,000m, both the indoor and outdoor 1500m and the mile. After finishing fourth at the 2018 European Championships, she earned bronze at the 2019 European Indoors in Glasgow behind Laura Muir and Sogia Ennaoui.

A calf injury hampered her build-up to the delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and she failed to qualify from her heat. Coached by Helen Clitheroe, Mageean returned to the podium at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, finishing second to Laura Muir, and took silver at the European Championships in Munich the same year. At the Diamond League meeting in Brussels in 2022 she won the 1500m in 3:56.63, a time that took 3.6 seconds off Sonia O'Sullivan's Irish 1500m record and marked her first sub-four-minute run.

Mageean finished fourth in the 2023 World Championship final in Budapest as Faith Kipyegon won gold. She completed her set of European Championship medals with a dramatic 1500m victory in 2024, breaking through a boxed-in field behind GB's Georgia Bell and Jemma Reekie to win in 4:04.66. After missing the 2024 Paris Olympics through injury, she was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer in May 2025 but continued to appear publicly, including being presented to the crowd at half-time of the All-Ireland Hurling Final at Croke Park in July and joining 400 young athletes for a "Run with Ciara" celebration at the Irish National Championships in Dublin.

From her junior successes to her European titles and public appearances, BBC Sport has compiled a pictorial retrospective that looks back at Mageean's career in pictures.