The true adventure of Ireland’s first Olympic sprinting champion – Irish Times

Sometimes it feels like the smallest events have a big impact on our lives, and the smallest differences ultimately determine our destiny.

It turns out that qualifying for the Olympics is no exception. Throughout the long history of the Olympics, many Irish athletes and teams have witnessed the coin spinning in the air over the years.

Remember the Irish men’s and women’s hockey teams in Valencia last weekend?

Tisdall’s journey to Los Angeles began just three months before the Olympics began, when a letter with a British postmark arrived at General Eoin O’Duffy’s office in Dublin.

With Olympic qualification at stake, the women’s team lost to Great Britain 2-1, while the men’s team won 4-3 against South Korea. Four years ago, when both teams were fighting for a spot at the Tokyo Olympics, the coin fell the other way. The men’s team lost in the shootout against Canada, while the women’s team won the shootout against Canada and advanced to the top.

This summer’s Olympic hockey venue will be the Yves du Manoir Stadium in Colombes, northwest of Paris. When Paris last hosted the Olympics in 1924, this stadium was the main stadium and was graced by members of the Chariots of Chariots, including Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell. Fire fame.

This was the first time Ireland was represented as a free nation, and in the 100 years since, there have been many close calls over Olympic qualification and selection. Examples include Ronnie Delaney in the 1,500 meters in Melbourne in 1956 and John Tracy in his marathon at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

Still, few can match the qualifying story of Bob Tisdall, Ireland’s first and still only Olympic medal winner in a sprint event. What’s strange is that Tisdall competed in his 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. In a near miracle, he won gold in the 400m hurdles in a world record time. What is certain is that in modern times it would be impossible for him to accomplish that.

Tisdall’s journey to Los Angeles began just three months before the Olympics began when a letter bearing a British postmark arrived at the office of General Eoin O’Duffy (then president of the Olympic Council of Ireland) in Dublin. . Like most people in Irish sport at the time, O’Duffy knew little about Tisdall.

Tisdall was born in Nuwara Eliya, a town in Sri Lanka’s central hills where his father ran tea and rubber plantations, and grew up in his mother’s native Tipperary, where he first distinguished himself on the rugby pitch with Nena. It was Ormond’s team. He then attended Cambridge University, where he took up track and field for the first time, winning the annual intercollegiate competition against Oxford in 1931 in four events: shot put, long jump, 120-yard hurdles, and 400-yard flat.

That planted the first Olympic seed in his mind, so Tisdall wrote to O’Duffy in late April 1932, requesting that he be selected to represent Los Angeles in two events: the 400 meter hurdles and the decathlon. He didn’t seem fazed by the fact that the Olympics are just three months away from him, and that Tisdall has yet to compete in either sport.

O’Duffy may or may not have flipped a coin on this, but in any case he wrote back to Tisdall and invited him to attend Ireland’s Olympic trials in Croke Park on June 3rd. Ta. The qualifying time for the 400m hurdles was set at 55 seconds, an Irish record at the time, and Tisdall came close to that and won in 56.2 seconds, despite not having any one-lap sprint hurdles.

It wasn’t enough to get him on the boat to Los Angeles, but it was enough to impress O’Duffy, who gave him a second chance at the Irish Athletics Championships in Croke Park on June 18. Ta. This time, on just his second attempt, Tisdall won in 54.2 seconds and the rest is Irish Olympic history.

After a two-week training camp in Ballybunion, 25-year-old Tisdall first lined up for the 400m hurdles heats alongside Dr Pat O’Callaghan, who was aiming to defend the Olympic Hammer title he won in Amsterdam four years ago. did. On the afternoon of July 31st, he won in 54.8 seconds. Two hours later, he returned to the semifinals and won, this time dropping his personal best to 52.8 points.

The final was set for Monday, August 1 at 3pm, which happened to be the same time O’Callaghan was in the hammer circle. Despite overlapping athletes such as 1924 Olympic champion Morgan Taylor of the United States and 1928 Olympic champion Sir David Burley of Great Britain, Tisdall was rattled by the end, but again He showed an amazing run and won the gold medal with a world record time of 51.7 seconds. Hurdles at the time excluded times for record purposes.

And then sit at the desk, read the letter and think about how his life journey changed by the whim of the man who gave the dreamer a chance.

That was not a problem for Tisdall, who had just won his second Olympic medal for Ireland, but a few minutes later he turned his attention to the infield area where O’Callaghan was having problems with the length of his spikes. So they worked together to file them down and finally threw the steel ball and chain 177 feet before O’Callaghan won his second gold medal.

“By winning this race, I fulfilled one of my life’s ambitions,” Tisdall said after the race, as if it had always been a dream. He also placed eighth in the decathlon.

Tisdall, who later settled in the small coastal town of Nambour in Queensland, was at the time the world’s oldest Olympic gold medalist in track and field, and died in 2004 at the age of 97. And consider how the whims of the man sitting at the desk changed his life’s journey. He read the letter and gave the dreamer a chance.