Donna Fraser OBE – sport and pensions

Coffee Morning – Meet Donna Fraser OBE – Olympian & World Championship Bronze medalist! – In conversation with! 

We will be asking Donna about her career, successes, competing at an “Olympic” level and what it takes to win!

An exceptional junior, Fraser won six English Schools 200 m titles (as well as a silver medal for the 4 × 100 m at the 1990 World Junior Championships before turning to the 400 m in 1991 and becoming European Junior Champion at the distance the same year (also gaining a silver medal for the 4 × 100 m).

However, she didn’t improve until 1996, when she began to concentrate on the 400 metres and in 1997 Fraser won the 1997 British Athletics Championships 400 metres title and in addition she finished second behind Jamaican Evadnie McKenzie in the 100 metres event at the 1997 AAA Championships.^[3] By virtue of being the highest placed British athlete at the AAAs she was considered the British 100 metres champion as well.^[4]

Fraser was an individual finalist and 4 x 400 m relay relay team bronze medallist at the European Championships and also won two bronze medals at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Malaysia.^[5]

However, it was at the 2000 Sydney Olympics that she finally realised her potential, after winning the AAA title,^[6] she shaved nearly a second off her personal best to finish fourth in the Olympic final with a time of 49.79 seconds. This achievement was largely attributed to her training alongside Olympic champion Cathy Freeman that season.^[7]

Her career after 2000 stalled due to a catalogue of injuries (including a torn achilles tendon^[1][2]) but she returned to win the 400 metres title at the 2005 AAA Championships^[8] and win the BBC London Athlete of the Year Award for 2005.^[9] At the 2007 World Championships in Athletics, Fraser went as part of the 4 × 400 m relay squad. Despite not running in the final, she received a bronze medal, as she competed in the heats on the second leg.^{[citation needed]}

In September 2009, she announced that she was going to leave athletics to return to working full-time at EDF Energy. Her final major race was the 400 m at the British Grand Prix at Gateshead, where she finished 7th with a time of 54.11 seconds.^[1][2] However, she has continued to race for the Croydon Harriers, an athletics club based at the Croydon Sports Arena.^[1][2][10]

Fraser was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to equality, inclusion and diversity in the workplace.^[11] Fraser worked at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games Organising Committee as Head of Inclusion and Engagement. In 2022, she was named World Athletics‘ Woman of the Year.^[12]

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