BOOK EXTRACT/ CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARDS: In this extract from his autobiography, written by Irish Times columnist George Kimball, Eamon Coghlanrecalls his agonising failure in his first Olympic final at Montreal in 1976.

ARRIVING in Montreal was both nerve-wracking and exhilarating. I was about to go onto the biggest stage in sports and I could already feel the weight of expectation. When I got my first look at Stade Olympique, I was thinking "Wow, this is awesome! When are they going to finish building it?" It was eventually renamed the Big O because the city owed so much for it many years beyond the games.

The facility had been six or seven years in the making, but the Montreal Olympics had run way over budget and many aspects of the venue weren't completed in time for the games. The track and the spectator seating areas were there all right, but a planned retractable roof never did get finished. There were cranes still in place, and you had the feeling you were in the midst of a construction site.

Because of the events at Munich four years earlier, security was much tighter. And most of the talk was still about the African boycott, with politics once again threatening to overshadow the Olympics.

As was the drugs issue. The word around Montreal was that the Eastern Bloc countries were systematically providing their athletes with steroids. Years later, the extent and magnitude of this particular drugs scandal would be revealed to a shocked world.

In Montreal, they won every women's event in track and field. In swimming there was also something fishy - there were twenty-one records broken by Eastern Bloc swimmers.

At the time I believed that the runners who I would race against were clean.

Drugs never came up in conversations at Villanova. We knew nothing whatsoever about them. The nearest we got to drugs would be a B12 shot in the arse from Dr Boyle in the college infirmary when we were run down from exhaustion. This was the Olympics and it is the loose talk that confuses the mind of an athlete.

We stayed in the newly constructed Olympic village. It was a large pyramid-type structured building where all the athletes lived. It was a great feeling to walk around and soak up the atmosphere.

Here was I coming from being a college athlete one week, to an Olympic contender the next. In the cafeteria, I saw the great Alberto Juantorena, who'd just won the 800 metres in world record time and Lasse Viren, who successfully defended the 10,000 metres he'd won four years earlier in Munich: he'd be going for the double in the 5,000 metres days later.

Then when I saw Nadia Comaneci in the queue right in from of me I was amazed by the size of her tiny-framed body. I thought it incomprehensible that such a slight little fourteen-year-old child could possess such magnificent power and grace.

And then there was an opportunity to make some money. The athletic shoe companies, Puma and adidas in particular, were working at the Olympics trying to get athletes to wear their shoes. While I was a Puma man, I had no formal contract with them. Adidas were pursuing me to switch to switch to them. They had most of the top 1,500 metre runners on their books and wanted me.

When I let it be known to Peter Purcell, the Irish agent for Puma, that adidas were trying to poach me, he quickly took me to the Puma office to meet Derek Ibbotson, a former world mile record holder and Puma's number one guy, to get me "all the shoes I wanted." I said I wasn't interested in shoes, that money talks now.

We struck a deal. I'd get $10,000 for gold, $6,000 for silver and $4,000 for bronze. It sounded great, but I still wasn't happy. I wanted a guaranteed payment to just wear the Puma shoes, on top of the offer for my finishing position. After much debate behind closed doors, they came out and handed me my shoes.

Inside one of the pairs was stuffed $4,000 in crispy new $100 bills. It was going to go a long way towards my wedding.

When I'd been back in Ireland the previous Christmas, I'd had a long talk with Ronnie Delany whose advice I respected. "Don't take any chances," he told me, "make sure you win your heats, make sure you win the semi-final, qualifying is most important and be ready to go in the final."

I took that advice to heart. I won my preliminary heat easily in 3:39.7 after a slight mishap with Canadian runner Dave Hill, who'd clipped the back of my heel. I bolted out of trouble and ran thirty-eight seconds for the final 300 metres. The luck of the draw put off the Walker-Coghlan confrontation for another day.

My semi-final included Wolhuter, Wellman, Van Damme, and Britain's Frank Clement, while Walker's competition would come from Wessinghage, Hill, Britain's Steve Ovett, the Aussie Graham Crouch, and another Belgian, Herman Mignon.

When I ran in the semi-final, I put on another great kick and won that, too, in 3:38.6., though there was a momentary fright when it looked like I might be trapped coming off the final turn. The charge was another thirty-eight seconds over the final 300 and in retrospect I had shown my aces too soon.

John Walker won both his heat and semi-final in slower times than me - and there was no sign of that rumoured Achilles problem. The Irish media went into a frenzy. I was being chased non-stop for a sound bite.

Irish team manager Pádraig Griffin did his best to protect me. For the media it was the first time in twenty years since Ronnie Delany won in 1956 that Ireland had a genuine chance of striking gold.

Back in Dublin a banner headline in the Evening Pressproclaimed:

"NOW FOR CLASH OF GIANTS"

AFTER MY SEMI-FINALqualification, I met Gerry Farnan and my parents outside the stadium. Gerry pulled me aside. "So, Eamonn," he asked nervously, "what's your plan for tomorrow?"

I told him I intended to stick right behind Walker all the way and do my usual kick at some point off the last bend.

"That's all I needed to hear," he said, "no need to talk about it any further."

When I left Gerry that afternoon, I was still brimming with confidence. Then I went back to my room and planted the first seeds of my own self-destruction.

When I returned to the Olympic Village I decided to experiment. Over the years at Villanova, I'd had spent most nights in conversations with Chalkie White about training and racing techniques in our respective sports. One of the things that had always fascinated me was when he talked about "shaving down" for a big race.

Swimmers are always looking for any edge, and removing body hair to decrease water resistance was one of them.

The way he described it, the process sounded almost exhilarating: Chalkie said when you shaved down for a big race you could just feel yourself get faster when you dived into the pool and you'd just glide through the water. I'm sure part of the perceived boost was psychological. He made it sound like an adrenaline rush as you rose to a new level.

I'd told myself that if I were to ever "shave down" it would be for the final of the Olympic Games. Sadly, Chalkie didn't get selected to swim for Ireland in the Games. While I was disappointed for my friend he was devastated - he was so close to the qualifying times and I knew how dedicated he was and hard he had worked.

I'd assumed the shaving process would take fifteen or twenty minutes, half an hour at most, but late that evening I was still in the bathtub, hacking away at my bloodied legs. It had taken over two hours and I'd nicked myself countless times.

And the worst part was still to come. Once I'd finished the job, I didn't realise you were supposed to apply some cream. Now I was lying there in the bed, itching and scratching as the bed-sheets rubbed against my dry skin. I hardly got any sleep.

On the morning of the Olympic 1,500 metres final - I was a walking rash. Over breakfast I was rubbing and scratching and didn't even have the sense to tell the team doctor what I'd done and the discomfort I was in.

My focus was on the cuts and not the race. I got to my room after breakfast when the phone rang. It was Jumbo. I couldn't tell him what I had stupidly done the night before.

"S-s-so, ch-ch-champ. H-h-how you feeling?"

"Oh, I'm grand," I lied.

"W-w-well, l-l-listen," he said, "I'm just l-l-looking at the field, and there's a lot of fast half-milers in here: Walker, 1:44; Van Damme, 1:43; Rick Wolhuter, 1:43. If the p-p-pace is slow, b-b-be careful. D-d-don't let the pace be too slow."

I got confused. Until Jumbo's call I'd never even thought about the pace being slow. All I'd thought about as I envisioned the way the race would unfold was running, sitting, and then kicking. That had always been my stock in trade.

Usually it was good enough, sometimes it wasn't, but until that brief conversation with Jumbo I'd never considered trying to run the race any other way. And with the final scheduled for that afternoon, I had too much time to think as I lay around the room before I left for the stadium.

That afternoon I piled onto the athletes' bus for the Stade Olympique. The first person I ran into on the bus was Nadia Comaneci, riding over to watch the athletics finals. Guy Drut was also on the bus. The Frenchman was about to compete in the 110-metre hurdles final. He was in the seat in front of me, smoking a cigarette. I was shocked. Drut won gold that day.

ONCE WE ARRIVED, I went inside the stadium to taste the atmosphere. I was overwhelmed - almost numbed: Something I had never experienced before and would never experience again at the same level of intensity.

I kept thinking "This is my final day of judgment, What if I win and, what if I lose?"

Confusion crept up on me. I felt it running deeper and deeper in my thought process and felt myself swamped with a myriad emotions, ideas, strategies and worries.

I headed off to the warm-up area to relax and refocus for the final. But instead of concentrating on what I should have been doing, I was starting to feel a bit of awe as I watched the other runners jog around. I began to attach the names to the faces.

I'd look at Walker and think "1:44"; at Van Damme and think "Wow, 1:43." I knew all about Walker, but I'd never laid eyes on Van Damme before. He wasn't the prettiest fellow you've ever seen, rather a fierce, intimidating-looking man with his beard, moustache, and long blonde hair. I'd already beaten him in the semi-final, and normally he wouldn't have been someone I feared. But after Jumbo's warning, I found myself wondering and thinking too much for my own liking.

Eyeballing the competition was something I'd never done before and in the "calling room" I was far from happy. Usually, I'd think about my own race - what I was going to do - not about the other competitors. Looking back at it, the indecision and the fear of failure was what I brought to the start line.

Once we were on the track, I removed my warm-ups just beyond the starting line. The others looked deadly serious. Meanwhile, I was scratching my legs, which, despite the itch, did feel cool and light as the air hit them. I did my last couple of warm up strides and was ready to go.

Called to our marks, I remember thinking to myself "This is the biggest thing you're ever going to do in your whole life."

I was aware that millions were tuned in on television and 70,000 people in the stadium were watching with incredible anticipation for this, the blue ribbon event of the Olympic Games.

I felt like a little boy amongst men.

When the gun went off, I hesitated momentarily to let the others go so I could identify Walker's position and follow my plan. Dave Moorcroft took the lead, while I settled in third or fourth from last, with Walker right in front of me. Perfect, I had him in sight.

As we passed through the first quarter, Jumbo's warning flashed in my mind as I heard the split being called, 62.8 seconds. "Shit!" I thought, "it is slow." If it had been 58 or 59 seconds, I'd have stayed right where I was, but this seemed unconscionably slow. Then it was as if I turned on an electric switch. In one sudden gush of energy, I shot from the rear of the pack to the front over the length of the back straight. Now leading, I took a quick glance behind, and who was there but John Walker.

At that instant, I realised that I might already have set myself up to be the sacrificial lamb.

"S***," I told myself, "you've become Walker's rabbit again."

For the next two-and-a-half laps, I was cursing myself and praying for somebody to go by.

My old mantra "relax, relax, relax," became "panic, panic, panic." Nobody would pass, no one else was that foolish. I didn't even increase the pace to break Walker or Van Damme's speed.

Instead, I cruised through 800 metres in 2:03. Walker forced me along. He was in control pushing me a little through the 1,200 metres in 3:01. As Walker tried to pass me at the bell with 400 metres to go, I managed to hold him off and made him run wide of the curb. But, with 300 metres remaining, Walker made another big, big long run for home, and this time he got by. I tried to stay with him, but I was already sprinting just to stay with him. I was in top gear too soon.

Then 200 out, Van Damme went past me. Once again, I moved wide on the turn to try to establish a position coming into the stretch run. Wolhuter tried to pass me, but I held him off on the final turn.

As we hit that final straight, I moved wide, still entertaining hopes of making a last big run at Walker and Van Damme on the outside. They weren't getting away from me - but I wasn't making up any ground on them, either. Then, with about 30 metres to go, Wellman came up the gap I'd opened on the inside lane and caught me on my left.

"S***! S***! S***!" I was cursing myself as the race began to go away from me. I knew I was running out of space and, as we came to the finish line, I frustratingly leaned too quickly and broke my momentum. We all went over the finish line in near-lockstep: Just three-tenths of a second separated first from fourth.

"F***, f***, f***," I screamed to myself.

I finished in fourth.

I MISJUDGED WELLMAN, who sneaked up on the inside to snatch the bronze. The last 400 metres were covered in a shade over fifty-one seconds. The world had ended for me. I threw myself down on the infield of the track sobbing in a daze of disbelief. Every dream, all my expectations, everything that had ever seemed important had been drained right out of me there and then.

I was utterly crushed, humiliated by my naivety, utterly bereft of any feeling except for the waves of self-pity that engulfed me. I lay there on the infield thinking I'd never feel this badly again.

I was wrong.

Moments later I watched the medal presentation take place and felt a huge emotional sense of loss. I didn't want silver, I didn't want bronze. I wanted the gold. And I had just handed it to Walker on a plate.

To make matters worse, Lord Killanin the new president of the International Olympic Committee, presented the medals. An Irishman, it was pretty obvious that he expected to be placing one of those medals around my neck.

But Walker deserved it. He ran a brilliant tactical race and probably had to overcome greater pressure than I - such was the weight of expectation on his shoulders.

All I could do was shake his hand and say, "Well done."

When I faced the Irish media, I could feel their disappointment. I had anticipated being pilloried by the Irish media after the final, but for the most part people were both understanding and kind.

I knew they had built me up as the man who might beat Walker, and if I didn't, that I might at least get a medal of another colour. It was like a shared moment of respect. All I could do was bravely hide my disappointment and say, "There is no use in complaining, I did what I had to do and finished fourth, a medal is not everything, life still goes on."

Back in Ireland, the media had staked out both my family's house and the Murphy's too. Cameras were rolling in anticipation of capturing the glorious moment on their faces as they were glued to television sets. Instead of ecstasy, they got agony. The nation had apparently come to a standstill. Weddings were delayed, workers came off the job, pubs packed with people all waiting for the gold. The national build-up turned out to be a national setback.

"Coghlan couldn't do it when it really counted."

I would go on to hear that refrain for many years to come. A couple of hours after the final Gerry Farnan tried to console me, even though deep down inside I knew he must have been as bitterly disappointed as I was. He'd truly believed this had been one we were destined to win.

He decided the best thing we could do was get away from the Olympic Village as quickly as we could. We went off to find something to eat and try to get my mind off what had happened. We walked into an Irish pub, and ran into a group of people drinking down at one end of the bar. When they spotted me, one of them looked up and shouted,

"Hey, Coghlan, what the f*** happened to you today? I lost ten dollars on you!"

Gerry exploded. His face turned crimson - I thought he was going to throttle the guy.

He finally spluttered, "You can f*** off yourself!"

Then he grabbed me and marched me out. We walked around Montreal that evening, passing pub after pub filled with Olympic revellers. We wandered around the subway area, talking about everything except running. There was no use crying over spilt milk and besides, in all the years he mentored me, we never discussed a race until days after it had passed, good or bad.

At the end of the night, just before he left me back at the Village, Gerry said, "Eamonn, what we'll do next is plan for Moscow in 1980. You'll train for the 5,000 metres, but you'll race the mile."

I discovered that my Dad - a pioneer all of his life until that point - had that night after the final, gone out and got royally pissed. I should have too.

Eamonn Coghlan: Chairman of the Boards Master of the Mile

Red Rock Press €16.99. Paperback, 264 pages. Published August 13th