Among the early influences on the life of Ronnie Delany was the open space and the Avoca river that flowed behind the house where he was born at Ferrybank in Arklow on March 6th, 1935, giving him an appreciation for the simple freedoms he later associated with running.
The family moved to Sandymount in south Dublin when he was six, but Delany has never forgotten his Wicklow roots. Nor has Wicklow, and the house where he was born 90 years ago today is recognised by a commemorative plaque outside, erected by Arklow Chamber of Commerce in 2001, with the brief inscription: “Birthplace of Ronnie Delany, Olympic Gold Medallist 1,500 metres Melbourne 1956.”
Delany is still remembered around the world because of that Olympic victory. In 2006, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of his Melbourne triumph, he was granted the Freedom of Dublin, the city he still calls home. Arklow has since added a statue and Delany Park, also named in his honour.
“All my life I have been proud of my origins in Co Wicklow,” Delany wrote in his book Staying The Distance, published in 2006. “Although the family moved to Dublin my mother and I, in particular, maintained close links with friends in the Arklow and Avoca areas.”
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Delany did also have Dublin roots via his mother, who lived near Leeson Street Bridge, and whose father was a publican at 8/9 Sussex Terrace in Dublin 4 − that pub now named O’Brien’s − and which all southsiders know will be jam-packed for the rugby on Saturday.
It was during his teenage years growing up in Sandymount that the seeds for Delany’s date with Olympic destiny were sown. His elder brother, Joe, was his first athletic role model, but his pursuit of greatness in sport always came from within. He abandoned a prized position in the Army Cadets (leaving his father “aghast”) and found a job selling vacuum cleaners door to door in Kilkenny.
“I would train every day in James Park, a sort of agricultural place,” Delany told this newspaper in 2006. “Stripping in a barn. My company were sheep and bullocks. And I’d say even they were amazed. ‘What is this mad person doing?’ And there was a sort of madness to the whole thing, in a nice way.
“The funny thing is I hated training. I was probably a little lazy, but I trained smart, and I brought a lot of my own views to the table. It was only when I went to America that I really believed I could be the Olympic champion.
“And I did love to race, had an insatiable appetite to win. Jumbo Elliott at Villanova was a great manager as much as a coach. The slogan in our dressing-room was ‘Win, or bust’. Jumbo never put his arm around you for finishing second. The only expectation was to win. I was a product of that environment.”
Delany closed in on his destiny with remarkable momentum. On June 1st, 1956, exactly six months before the 1,500m final in Melbourne, he became only the seventh man in history to crack the four-minute mile, running 3:59.0 in California. Later he was badly spiked in an 800-metre race in Paris, and raced just twice more that summer, unwittingly sparing his racing legs. Still, the then Olympic Council of Ireland confirmed his selection for Melbourne only at the last moment.
The story of his 1956 success at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, in front of 120,000 spectators, has been told many times, and in another interview with this newspaper in 2016, marking its 60th anniversary, Delany recalled the race in detail.
“My only goal is to win,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking about second, or third, or running well. Two hours before the race, I’d turn on the nerves, to get the adrenaline flowing, then about an hour before became the cold, calculated, tactician.”
The favourite, and not just for the Melbourne crowd, was the 26-year-old Australian John Landy, who had lowered Roger Bannister’s mile world record to 3:58.0. Britain had three finalists, including Brian Hewson, and while there was a sense any one of the 12 might win, Delany was the dark horse.
“The important thing is the shape of the race, to be in a position to strike, make the one move, to win. That was the only tactic I knew, learnt from my first coach Jack Sweeney, back in CUS in Dublin.”
Still back in 10th with 350m to go, Delany made that final move with 60m to run, passing Hewson to win in 3:41.2, an Olympic record by exactly four seconds. The German Klaus Richtzenhain came through for silver, Landy for bronze.
A series of Achilles’ tendon injuries later followed, and the 1960 Olympics in Rome were a disappointment; eliminated in the 800m, he promptly withdrew from the 1,500m: “I have no recriminations whatsoever about any of my disappointments,” he said.
Delany formally retired in the summer of 1961, aged 26, announcing it the same day as his engagement to Joan Riordan. “It’s true, in a sense, that I’ve never run since,” he said. “I couldn’t afford to run around Dublin, because anytime I did someone would be trying to race me. And I never wanted to be perceived as the Olympic champion showing off.”
Coming from such modest roots in Wicklow, there is no such thing as showing off. Happy 90th birthday, Ronnie.
