I can’t remember exactly the first time I met Ronnie Delany in person, but I’ll never forget the first time I spoke to him. On the telephone, soon after I started winning a few big races as a teenager, not actually knowing who he even was.
He called our house in Cobh, and my mother Mary answered the phone. Which in those days was out in the hall, attached to the wall, the handset not reaching very far on a stretchy cord.
With that she turned around to me, her hand over the mouthpiece so the caller couldn’t hear, and half-whispered, “it’s Ronnie Delany on the phone asking for you!”
Of course my mother knew all about Ronnie Delany. So this was a much bigger deal to her than it was for me. She would have been a young child when he won his 1,500m Olympic gold in Melbourne in 1956, and it was the biggest thing in the whole country. So he was definitely the most famous person to ever call up our house.
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That would have been around this time of year, in 1987, after I’d just won the Irish senior cross-country in Tipperary, at 17. There was already talk of me going on a US scholarship, that colleges like Villanova and Providence were interested, and Ronnie was all over that. All he wanted to tell me was Villanova was the place to go, it had been the best place for him. He wasn’t pushy, but he couldn’t recommend it highly enough.
A few weeks later I went to visit Villanova, at Easter. I remember walking into the old Jake Nevin field house and basketball court, up to the track and field office, and there was this giant picture of Ronnie kneeling in prayer, after winning his gold medal in Melbourne. The women’s coach there at the time, Marty Stern, said “well you know who that is?”
So I think then I appreciated the whole Irish connection, what they call the Villanova pipeline, and that Ronnie had been our most successful athlete by far. Big shoes to follow.
It was only in later years when I got to meet and connect with him that I fully understood the scale of his achievement. When I was running the Olympic 5,000m final in Sydney, in 2000, he was sitting in the stands beside my husband Nic and our daughter Ciara. He was hoping for another gold medal, was still delighted with my silver, and having Ronnie there to witness it always resonated with me.
From that point our friendship only grew. He’d helped set up the Irish Olympians Association, and got these yellow ties and scarfs made up for all the Irish men and women who had competed. And he made sure every one of us got sent one.
I still have my letter and scarf here at home, and Ronnie signed it off by writing “Once an Olympian ... always an Olympian”. I think any time I met Ronnie after he was wearing his yellow Olympic tie, because he always wanted to reinforce the value of what it meant to be an Olympian. He’d get quite annoyed if anyone was called a former Olympian, that really rankled with him. Even now whenever anyone says “former Olympian”, I call them out and say “no, you’re never a former Olympian”.
I suppose different generations of Irish Olympians would relate to Ronnie in different ways, and maybe more recent Olympians wouldn’t quite appreciate that winning the gold medal in the men’s 1,500m was seen as the ultimate glory for any Irish athlete.
We got to meet at many events over the years, fun things like carrying the Olympic torch in London in 2012. And whenever Ronnie would call me on the phone, you’d drop everything and answer. No matter what it was about, you’d always make the time.
I think more than anything he just had this aura about what an Olympic champion should be. He’d walk into a room, and his presence alone would strike you – he was always able to carry that aura too.
One of the last times we met in person was at The Irish Times/Sport Ireland Sportswoman of the Year awards, at the Shelbourne Hotel. It was always one of his favourite events, and I remember he’d tell me that afterwards he’d go into the Horseshoe Bar, have one pint of Guinness, then do a lap of the bar and speak to everyone he hadn’t yet spoken to. Simply so they could say they met him there, then he’d leave, not wanting to hog any more attention.
But he was always proud of his achievement, and rightly so, and carried that honour wherever he went with absolute grace.
He was also great for the younger Olympians coming through, always interested in what they were doing. And he was always well up to date on all things Irish athletics.
[ Happy 90th birthday, Ronnie Delany: from Wicklow’s fields to Olympic goldOpens in new window ]
I also remember in 2015 Jarlath Regan got to interview Ronnie on his Irishman Running Abroad podcast. They were meant to chat for 30 minutes, and ended up chatting for 90. About everything. Ronnie would always make time for people that way.
One of the things he often spoke about was that winning an Olympic gold medal was his destiny. He truly believed that. When I first moved to Melbourne, and used to live across from the Melbourne Cricket Ground, I’d often pass by and see his name up there on the wall with all the Olympic medal winners from 1956.
A few years back when then president Micheal D Higgins came to Melbourne, I made sure he got to see Ronnie’s name on that wall. And he certainly appreciated the scale of the achievement too.
Times moves so fast these days, but I also remember in 2015, we were both in Baku, Azerbaijan for the European Games. One evening we were sitting out by the hotel swimming pool, I got in for a few lengths, and Ronnie starts telling me that he’s impressed, that I’ve inspired him to get back into swimming. And with that he jumps in for a few lengths.
So things kind of came full circle, that I was somehow inspiring him. He would have been 80 at the time, and while he appeared elderly, Ronnie never seemed old, still demonstrating all that youthful enthusiasm and zest for life. Which is exactly the way I’ll always remember him.
