John Duggan writes that the achievements of Pat O'Callaghan and Bob Tisdall should be remembered as we bid for Olympic success in the future...
Michael Carruth was on OTB's Saturday Panel recently, talking about coaching young kids boxing, and with the sport under a cloud at the moment, it's worth reminding ourselves that amateur boxing is our most successful Olympic sport.
Walking home that evening, I listened back to the podcast and I thought about Carruth. The words of Jimmy Magee rang around my brain. "Michael Carruth is the champion of the Olympic Games. Michael Carruth is the champion, the champion, the champion." It was a simple, brilliant piece of commentary of Carruth's gold medal triumph in Barcelona in 1992. What came to my mind was that Michael's achievement has a priceless commodity, indelibly inked in the history books. Nobody can ever take that away from Carruth. He'll always be a legend.
Carruth is just one of a handful of Olympic gold medal winners for Ireland since the foundation of the Free State 100 years ago. Katie Taylor remains our most admired sportsperson. The Michelle Smith story is well known.
Ronnie Delany? Well, his 1500 metres success in Melbourne back in 1956 should be within the memory bank of most folk, even young people. The footage of him crossing the line and blessing himself, becoming an icon of Irish track and field.
Historian Paul Rouse was on the show a few years ago and he spoke about the 25 Olympic medals won by Irish people before independence. They are worth a dissertation in their own right, but I did dig into the other two Irish gold medal winners after the Treaty, Civil War and foundation of Ireland as we know it.
Rouse touched on an important point - victory in the Olympics evokes a sense of patriotism, nationalism even. Any of us who watched Carruth or Taylor as the national anthem played in front of the tricolour at their medal ceremonies knows that. The sad fact is those moments have been few and far between in our history.
So who were those two other golden stars?
Cork's Pat O'Callaghan won gold in the hammer in Amsterdam in 1928 and in Los Angeles in 1932. Tipperary's Bob Tisdall won gold in the 400 metres hurdles in 1932.
Those gold medal wins in 1932 at the Los Angeles Coliseum came within an hour of each other.
I have heard these names countless times as footnotes in our sporting history. O'Callaghan and Tisdall. They never resonated, they were too far back.
So I am glad I looked into their stories because they had very interesting lives.
Pat O'Callaghan was a doctor from Kanturk, who was undoubtedly the best hammer thrower in the world for years. Tisdall was born in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, and grew up in Nenagh. Both embraced athletics while at college, O'Callaghan at the Royal College of Surgeons, Tisdall at Cambridge.
O'Callaghan had a hulking physique which made the hammer the perfect match for his frame.
Tisdall was a successful runner at Cambridge before writing to General Eoin O'Duffy of the National Athletics and Cycling Association, declaring his wish to compete for Ireland at the Olympics.
O'Duffy would subsequently became notorious for the Blueshirts. Tisdall, with no previous hurdling experience, eventually passed his trial and both O'Callaghan and Tisdall would train in Ballybunion.
It's fascinating to learn how they got to Los Angeles. A boat to Boston and a train across America over 14 days.
On the golden day, August 1st, Tisdall hit the last hurdle on his way to victory in the final, denying him a world record. His time of 51.7 seconds would have been sufficient.
At the same time, O'Callaghan was struggling to execute a good throw in a hard ring. His spikes were a problem and Tisdall helped him shave down the spikes before he rallied to win gold with the final throw, a distance of 176 feet.
From there, the story took an outlandish turn, as O'Callaghan turned down the role of Tarzan, while Tisdall was invited to party with actor Douglas Fairbanks. The duo were feted upon their return to Ireland by Eamon De Valera, the new Taoiseach.
1932 was an interesting time in history. Herbert Hoover was the US President and America was in the midst of the Great Depression. Hitler had yet to come to power. Ireland was less than 10 years removed from a bloody conflict.
O'Callaghan didn't get the chance to compete at the Berlin Olympics. He would end up practising medicine in Clonmel before passing away in 1991. Tisdall settled in South Africa and eventually in Australia, where he carried the torch ahead of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He died in 2004, aged 97.
We did a week long series on the 'Future of Irish Sport' recently and I would love to see a clear plan from Sport Ireland and the Government in conjunction with the OFI to look beyond our noses when it comes to GAA, soccer and rugby and actively target Olympic medals in various disciplines. Maybe there is one and I'm just not aware of it.
Britain used lottery funding to design success in this regard - between 1912 and 2004 British Cycling won 10 gold medals. It's 22 gold medals for British Cycling since then.
Why can't we do the same and plant the seeds to unearth the next Paul and Gary O'Donovan across a range of sports? Not only did they have a touch of silver, but they lit up the nation. They made us feel good by being good.
The next Los Angeles Olympics are seven years away. It would be wonderful to see Ireland strike gold more than once yet again.
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