ATHLETICS:Winning an Olympic gold medal still sets you up for life more than any other sporting achievement. In ways the same can be said about merely competing at the Olympics, writes IAN O'RIORDAN
EVER BEEN to Athlacca? Ever even heard of it? Neither had I until we pulled in there on Thursday evening, after several unscheduled diversions, and an unplanned tour of Croom. It’s about 20 miles directly south of Limerick city but it’s a wonder we found the place at all, at least in time for the unveiling of Athlacca’s first and probably last sporting memorial plaque.
Some people will tell you the only thing we know for sure about Jim Hogan is that his name isn’t really Jim Hogan. He is a man of unfailing inscrutability, and even at age 77 lives a largely mysterious life. What is certain is that he was one of Ireland’s best ever distance runners, and remains our only major marathon championship winner. Hogan still looks like he could run a decent marathon, despite his age, and showed up on Thursday perfectly suited out in the slim-fitting blazer and bell-bottom pants he wore to the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.
I should probably point out this blazer was embroidered with the Union Jack, and the inscription “Great Britain Team – Mexico 1968”. Jim Hogan also has an Olympic blazer embroidered with a shamrock, and the inscription “Ireland Team – Tokyo 1964” although he’s reluctant to wear it. Without stirring up old controversies, Hogan switched allegiance the year after he competed in Tokyo (and bravely chased down Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila in the marathon, before eventually dropping out). It was the subject of his book, The Irishman Who Ran For England, published in 2008, in which he writes, unapologetically, “I’d had enough of the meanness of the Irish officials. I realised they were never going to do anything for me . . . I had already made up my mind that I would not run for Ireland again while it was governed by those miserable bastards”.
Hogan’s enduring respect among the Irish athletics community was reflected in the large turn out in Athlacca on Thursday evening. Among them were two fellow Olympians: Ronnie Delany, who no one needs reminding won the 1,500 metres gold medal in Melbourne in 1956; and Tom O’Riordan, who is often reminded in our family of finishing down the field in the 5,000 metres in Tokyo in 1964. They posed for a few photographs, with Hogan proudly displaying the gold medal he won in the European Championship marathon in 1966, running as an Irishman, for England. (This medal has been donated to Ger Hartmann’s sports museum in Limerick.)
Watching them reminisce about the old days it was impossible not to notice their mutual respect and inseparable bond – the sort that can only stem from something as indelibly distinct as competing in an Olympic Games. I’ve never met an Olympian who wasn’t somehow proud of that achievement, whether it was winning a gold medal or finishing down the field. And I’ve never met a young athlete who hasn’t somehow harboured Olympic aspirations, even if it’s just to walk in the Opening Ceremony.
“Once an Olympian, always an Olympian,” Delany preached to us, back inside the village hall. “There is something about the fellowship of sport that stays with you all your life. And it’s something very special to be recognised and celebrated by your own community.”
Delany then told the story of encountering what he assumed was an admirer of his, on the quays in Dublin, some years back. “Are you Ronnie Delany?” he was asked, and when modestly replying in the affirmative, was told: “Well you know I’ve never met anyone who got more bloody mileage out of winning a medal.” We all got a good laugh out of this, but it is true: winning an Olympic gold medal still sets you up for life more than any other sporting achievement.
In ways the same can be said about merely competing at the Olympics, although it’s often forgotten how close Delany came to missing out on both counts in 1956. He’d just turned 21 that March, and although he had run inside the qualifying standard demanded by the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI), only learned of his selection the day before he departed for Melbourne – having read about it in the newspaper. It was a split vote, as certain OCI members didn’t believe Delany was worthy of selection, partly because of their limited funds to send athletes all the way to Melbourne.
“The only horror about it is thinking back now about what would have happened if I hadn’t been sent,” Delany told me in an interview a few years ago. “I don’t do maybes, but it is terrifying to think about my life if I hadn’t won that Olympic gold medal. I can’t actually conceive it.”
Truth is, Irish athletics history is still shaken by tales of athletes not being sent to the Olympics for one bizarre reason or another: John Joe Barry, Jimmy Reardon and Cummin Clancy all missed out on Helsinki in 1952 because the OCI refused to pay their boat fare back from America: “I personally made no appeal or comment to anyone,” Barry wrote in his book, The Ballincurry Hare, “but let me say this now: I sincerely believe that Jimmy Reardon would have won the 880 yards, and I, John Joe Barry, would have won the mile plus the steeplechase.”
In 1956, high jumper Brendan O’Reilly had his bags packed at his college in Ann Arbor, Michigan, only to receive a telegram: “Trip Cancelled – Insufficient Funds”.
Others were a little luckier: Bob Tisdall was a very late addition to the Irish team for the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, having only taken up the 400 metres hurdles earlier that year. Let me remind you Tisdall won the gold medal. And John Treacy was selected for the 1984 Olympic marathon in Los Angeles without any qualifying time, as he’d never actually run a marathon before. No one needs reminding Treacy won the silver medal.
“Do you know how quick 3:35.0 for 1,500 metres is?” asked Eamonn Coghlan, at Thursday’s announcement of the Government’s €25.6 million funding package for our governing bodies of sport in 2011 – including €1.95 million in grants to aspiring Olympians, plus another €7.8 million for high-performance plans, all aimed primarily at next year’s London Olympics. Coghlan knows how quick 3:35.0 is: it’s quicker than he ever ran (which was 3:35.6) and it’s also the likely men’s A-standard for London. And like the majority of A-standards it’s effectively unattainable for Irish athletes, at least those who weren’t born and raised at altitude, and ran several miles to and from school. The likely B-standard of 3:38.0 is a little more realistic, although it’s still very quick.
But as we now know, some people think the Olympic Games are only about A-standards, even when it comes to the once in a lifetime chance of competing on our own doorstep, in largely familiar surroundings, and despite the massive investment of our precious taxpayers money. I’m sure Jim Hogan would have a few apt words for people who think like that.
