James Nolan

Who is James Nolan?

James Nolan is an athletics coach who was an Irish international runner from 1996 until 2008. He was a two time Olympian who specialized in the 800 metres between 1996 and 2000 before changing to the 1500 metres later that year. He was runner up in the 800 metre race at the European U23 athletics championship in 1999 and runner up over 1500 metres at the European Indoor Championship in 2000. Nolan ran in numerous championships in the years thereafter, racing in over 25 countries during his thirteen-year career but never met his early promise and his international racing wound down with a final showing at the 2008 World Indoor Championship: later that year he was unable to qualify for the 2008 Olympics and he retired in early January 2009 four years after his Irish Sports Council grant was withdrawn citing injury problems. He had a longer career and more consistently qualified for championships than contemporaries such as David Matthews and Gareth Turnbull but as stated after his earlier medal wins struggled particularly at outdoor events to do more than qualify for championships.