IT’S MILE 19 of the marathon at the 1984 Olympics, and two Irish men are among the leading pack pounding the streets of Los Angeles in unbearable heat.
Jerry Kiernan after winning the 1982 Dublin Marathon. Billy Stickland / INPHO
Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO
Shower heads spraying water on the runners are dotted along the road. Athletes stretch out their arms to clutch at the many water bottles and soaked sponges that are provided. Anything to bring some relief in the sun.
This is considered to be one of the best cast of runners to ever contest the marathon. With about seven miles remaining, Juma Ikangaa of Tanzania is leading the race. The eventual winner, Carlos Lopes from Portugal, is there too. Alberto Salazar of the USA, a pre-race favourite, has been blown off the pace.
Wearing a green Ireland vest bearing the numbers 471 is John Treacy. To his left, with 466 across his chest, is Jerry Kiernan. Originally from Kerry, Kiernan has often been associated with the town of Listowel, but he considers himself to be a Brosna man. And when he hears someone roar, ‘Up Brosna,’ on the Santa Monica boulevard at around the nine-mile mark, he’s alive with local pride.
He threw a bucket of water on himself before the race to try and bring the temperature down a touch. But he was bone dry within five minutes. This heat is unrelenting.
But here is he, running with the leaders, long after breezing past Salazar. Kiernan’s arrival causes Treacy to snap his neck twice in disbelief.
“I just tipped him on the backside and said, ‘How are you, John?’” Kiernan would later recall of that race where he eventually crossed the line in ninth place.
Kiernan predicted a top-10 finish. And in what was just his fifth competitive race at this distance, he came good on his promise.
****
The Jerry Kiernan Foundation is about two years old. His old friend Murt Coleman is among the people who were behind the project, endeavoring to preserve Kiernan’s legacy by funding promising athletes and helping them to pay for their dreams. Jack Raftery [Mixed 4x400m relay team] and Nicola Tuthill [hammer throw] are two of their athletes bound for the Paris Olympics.
It was different for Kiernan. He incurred most of the cost involved in becoming an Olympian, balancing his running schedule with his job as a teacher.
Coleman recalls one occasion when Kiernan flew over to Crystal Palace on a school night to compete in a 3,000m race. While he was there, he clocked a new Irish record of 7:54.70 and was back in the classroom by the clang of the school bell the next morning.
“He got home at around 12am and got the bus to his house,” says Coleman. “He got up for work the next morning at nine o’clock.
“That evening, we ran 10 miles as if nothing had happened. Until Jerry got ill, we used to run a couple of times per week. We’d meet in Er Buchetto, his favourite coffee shop. We’d chat and meet for regular runs.”
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Jerry Kiernan pictured with his friend Murt Coleman. Murt Coleman
Murt Coleman
Murt Coleman, originally from Galway city, first met Kiernan by accident after the 1974 national cross-country championships in Mallow. They bumped into each other on the train that was bringing them back to Dublin, where they both lived at the time. Kiernan was a teacher in the St Brigid’s school in Cabinteely, close to where Coleman lived, and would later go on to teach two of two of Coleman’s children.
They agreed to begin training together in the evenings after work. Kiernan’s talent was immediately apparent from those regular jaunts, but Coleman’s abiding memory of that first encounter in Mallow is the cold weather they ran in.
“It’s carved into the minds of the people who ran there,” he says, the memory of the day still burned in his brain. “It was probably the worst day ever [that] a cross-country was held. We couldn’t put our clothes on after. Jerry’s father helped dress him.”
Coleman and Kiernan trained hard together but didn’t always train smart. They could agree on that much. What they couldn’t decide was who was at fault for tapping on the accelerator. An easy run for the pair was intended to be a 10-mile jaunt in Belfield midweek. But instead of running at an even pace, their natural stamina would take over, propelling them to the finish line in a brisk 58 minutes.
“We’d come in complaining to one another,” says Coleman. “He’d be blaming me and I’d be blaming him.”
The longer runs between the pair were for the weekends. And that’s where Kiernan’s distinction as a future Olympian would become apparent. Coleman humbly admits that he could never beat his Kerry comrade in a race.
A six-minute mile run for Kiernan would take his running partner seven minutes to complete. A “Premiership” team versus someone “a couple of grades down” is the analogy Coleman chooses to illustrate their differences as runners.
But that never gave way to jealousy. Coleman always enjoyed running with Kiernan, and appreciated the wisdom he would often bring to the sessions. The people who passed through his classroom have often spoken about how he inspired them with his unorthodox teaching methods. His running sessions were a similar experience.
“He was extremely well-read,” says Coleman. “He taught outside the box with his students and one of the sessions we did on a Sunday morning in the Pine Forest in the Dublin Mountains, something came up about India. And he outlined the history of India during the run.”
****
Jerry Kiernan [file photo] James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
Kiernan decided to take part in the 1982 Dublin marathon, and as the event drew near, Coleman became concerned. He was worried about Kiernan’s conditioning for the race, although he was running twice a day and clocking up 100 miles per week. The mile and the 3,000 metres were Kiernan’s natural home as a runner. But this was the marathon, an entirely different prospect.
Kiernan was nervous the night before the race. He was pondering what pace to run at.
“Jerry had his own mind,” Coleman remembers, “and he was on 2:10 [Two hours, 10 minutes] when he stopped around Fairview with cramp for two or three minutes before he got going again.
The leaderboard in the 19th mile of the mile at the 1984 Olympics. YoutubeYoutube
“But he was so far ahead of the field, he took off like a hare. But still finished in 2:12 which was a fantastic run. And he did it again a few years later. He set a fantastic pace and probably didn’t realise what he was doing at the time. He just ran as he felt but he kind of caught him in the end with the cramping.”
That race altered the course of Kiernan’s career. After consulting with his coach Brendan O’Shea, Kiernan decided to specialise in the 26-mile race. Along with John Treacy and Dick Hooper, he was selected to represent Ireland at the LA Olympics in 1984.
It was the last event of the Games, and to adjust to the climate, Kiernan moved out to live in San Diego about a month beforehand. His coach O’Shea travelled with him. The principal of Kiernan’s school raised 5,000 old Irish punts to help Kiernan afford the trip, and “make life easier for him” as Coleman puts it. While that was lovely gesture from Kiernan’s school, it’s also a core reason why the Jerry Kiernan Foundation exists.
Coleman didn’t go to LA. He remained at home, and watched the race in the early hours of the morning.
“He appeared in the distance,” he says of Kiernan’s brilliant performance. “He was ninth and he got up to seventh, and fourth. And then he went back to ninth which was a great performance. But he felt that he came through the field too fast.
“He felt that if he was a little bit more mature about it, he probably would have got a better placing. But that’s only conversation after the race.
“He did a lot of his work in Leopardstown and he put a lot of his success down to that. Leopardstown had a swathe of grass that was about three inches and he used do some awesome sessions there before he went to Los Angeles. He had to work hard on the grass, lifting his legs out of it.”
Kiernan crossed the line in 2:12:20, although his run to the finish in the Los Angeles Memorial Colosseum was omitted from the American TV coverage. The Irish folks watching at home knew the result before people who were closer to the stadium.
Kiernan would later explain to the late, great Radio Kerry broadcaster Weeshie Fogarty that some friends, who were in LA the time, were forced to call a priest back in Ireland to find out about Kiernan’s placing.
“The parish priest got his information from Jimmy Magee but the boys had to ring home to find out,” said Kiernan in a wide-ranging interview. One Kerry legend in conversation with another.
****
Coleman thinks of Kiernan every day. Work with the Foundation is getting increasingly more hectic as more athletes, with similar ambitions to Kiernan, come under their watch.
He will miss Kiernan’s love of Barcelona FC and his penchant for betting on horse racing. His friend’s punditry will sadly be absent from RTÉ’s coverage, along with the bundles of research he would impart to the nation, and the uncompromising honesty he brought to the job. He knows Kiernan would love to be here, supporting one of the best-ever track teams that Ireland has sent to the Olympics. He would surely have cast a keen eye over the men’s and women’s marathon taking place today and tomorrow in Paris. And through it all, he would have analysed all of the results with total sincerity and truth.
Coleman and Kiernan often travelled to Italy together, where the latter had an apartment. He was fluent in Italian, and possessed a tremendous knowledge of the local area surrounding Montanelli and Lake Garda. Those are the days, before his health declined, that Coleman will remember with the most fondness.
“Time spent with Jerry was never wasted.”
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'He stopped with cramp for two or three minutes. But he was so far ahead of the field'
IT’S MILE 19 of the marathon at the 1984 Olympics, and two Irish men are among the leading pack pounding the streets of Los Angeles in unbearable heat.
Shower heads spraying water on the runners are dotted along the road. Athletes stretch out their arms to clutch at the many water bottles and soaked sponges that are provided. Anything to bring some relief in the sun.
This is considered to be one of the best cast of runners to ever contest the marathon. With about seven miles remaining, Juma Ikangaa of Tanzania is leading the race. The eventual winner, Carlos Lopes from Portugal, is there too. Alberto Salazar of the USA, a pre-race favourite, has been blown off the pace.
Wearing a green Ireland vest bearing the numbers 471 is John Treacy. To his left, with 466 across his chest, is Jerry Kiernan. Originally from Kerry, Kiernan has often been associated with the town of Listowel, but he considers himself to be a Brosna man. And when he hears someone roar, ‘Up Brosna,’ on the Santa Monica boulevard at around the nine-mile mark, he’s alive with local pride.
He threw a bucket of water on himself before the race to try and bring the temperature down a touch. But he was bone dry within five minutes. This heat is unrelenting.
But here is he, running with the leaders, long after breezing past Salazar. Kiernan’s arrival causes Treacy to snap his neck twice in disbelief.
“I just tipped him on the backside and said, ‘How are you, John?’” Kiernan would later recall of that race where he eventually crossed the line in ninth place.
Kiernan predicted a top-10 finish. And in what was just his fifth competitive race at this distance, he came good on his promise.
****
The Jerry Kiernan Foundation is about two years old. His old friend Murt Coleman is among the people who were behind the project, endeavoring to preserve Kiernan’s legacy by funding promising athletes and helping them to pay for their dreams. Jack Raftery [Mixed 4x400m relay team] and Nicola Tuthill [hammer throw] are two of their athletes bound for the Paris Olympics.
It was different for Kiernan. He incurred most of the cost involved in becoming an Olympian, balancing his running schedule with his job as a teacher.
Coleman recalls one occasion when Kiernan flew over to Crystal Palace on a school night to compete in a 3,000m race. While he was there, he clocked a new Irish record of 7:54.70 and was back in the classroom by the clang of the school bell the next morning.
“He got home at around 12am and got the bus to his house,” says Coleman. “He got up for work the next morning at nine o’clock.
“That evening, we ran 10 miles as if nothing had happened. Until Jerry got ill, we used to run a couple of times per week. We’d meet in Er Buchetto, his favourite coffee shop. We’d chat and meet for regular runs.”
Murt Coleman, originally from Galway city, first met Kiernan by accident after the 1974 national cross-country championships in Mallow. They bumped into each other on the train that was bringing them back to Dublin, where they both lived at the time. Kiernan was a teacher in the St Brigid’s school in Cabinteely, close to where Coleman lived, and would later go on to teach two of two of Coleman’s children.
They agreed to begin training together in the evenings after work. Kiernan’s talent was immediately apparent from those regular jaunts, but Coleman’s abiding memory of that first encounter in Mallow is the cold weather they ran in.
“It’s carved into the minds of the people who ran there,” he says, the memory of the day still burned in his brain. “It was probably the worst day ever [that] a cross-country was held. We couldn’t put our clothes on after. Jerry’s father helped dress him.”
Coleman and Kiernan trained hard together but didn’t always train smart. They could agree on that much. What they couldn’t decide was who was at fault for tapping on the accelerator. An easy run for the pair was intended to be a 10-mile jaunt in Belfield midweek. But instead of running at an even pace, their natural stamina would take over, propelling them to the finish line in a brisk 58 minutes.
“We’d come in complaining to one another,” says Coleman. “He’d be blaming me and I’d be blaming him.”
The longer runs between the pair were for the weekends. And that’s where Kiernan’s distinction as a future Olympian would become apparent. Coleman humbly admits that he could never beat his Kerry comrade in a race.
A six-minute mile run for Kiernan would take his running partner seven minutes to complete. A “Premiership” team versus someone “a couple of grades down” is the analogy Coleman chooses to illustrate their differences as runners.
But that never gave way to jealousy. Coleman always enjoyed running with Kiernan, and appreciated the wisdom he would often bring to the sessions. The people who passed through his classroom have often spoken about how he inspired them with his unorthodox teaching methods. His running sessions were a similar experience.
“He was extremely well-read,” says Coleman. “He taught outside the box with his students and one of the sessions we did on a Sunday morning in the Pine Forest in the Dublin Mountains, something came up about India. And he outlined the history of India during the run.”
****
Kiernan decided to take part in the 1982 Dublin marathon, and as the event drew near, Coleman became concerned. He was worried about Kiernan’s conditioning for the race, although he was running twice a day and clocking up 100 miles per week. The mile and the 3,000 metres were Kiernan’s natural home as a runner. But this was the marathon, an entirely different prospect.
Kiernan was nervous the night before the race. He was pondering what pace to run at.
“Jerry had his own mind,” Coleman remembers, “and he was on 2:10 [Two hours, 10 minutes] when he stopped around Fairview with cramp for two or three minutes before he got going again.
“But he was so far ahead of the field, he took off like a hare. But still finished in 2:12 which was a fantastic run. And he did it again a few years later. He set a fantastic pace and probably didn’t realise what he was doing at the time. He just ran as he felt but he kind of caught him in the end with the cramping.”
That race altered the course of Kiernan’s career. After consulting with his coach Brendan O’Shea, Kiernan decided to specialise in the 26-mile race. Along with John Treacy and Dick Hooper, he was selected to represent Ireland at the LA Olympics in 1984.
It was the last event of the Games, and to adjust to the climate, Kiernan moved out to live in San Diego about a month beforehand. His coach O’Shea travelled with him. The principal of Kiernan’s school raised 5,000 old Irish punts to help Kiernan afford the trip, and “make life easier for him” as Coleman puts it. While that was lovely gesture from Kiernan’s school, it’s also a core reason why the Jerry Kiernan Foundation exists.
Coleman didn’t go to LA. He remained at home, and watched the race in the early hours of the morning.
“He appeared in the distance,” he says of Kiernan’s brilliant performance. “He was ninth and he got up to seventh, and fourth. And then he went back to ninth which was a great performance. But he felt that he came through the field too fast.
“He felt that if he was a little bit more mature about it, he probably would have got a better placing. But that’s only conversation after the race.
“He did a lot of his work in Leopardstown and he put a lot of his success down to that. Leopardstown had a swathe of grass that was about three inches and he used do some awesome sessions there before he went to Los Angeles. He had to work hard on the grass, lifting his legs out of it.”
Kiernan crossed the line in 2:12:20, although his run to the finish in the Los Angeles Memorial Colosseum was omitted from the American TV coverage. The Irish folks watching at home knew the result before people who were closer to the stadium.
Kiernan would later explain to the late, great Radio Kerry broadcaster Weeshie Fogarty that some friends, who were in LA the time, were forced to call a priest back in Ireland to find out about Kiernan’s placing.
“The parish priest got his information from Jimmy Magee but the boys had to ring home to find out,” said Kiernan in a wide-ranging interview. One Kerry legend in conversation with another.
****
Coleman thinks of Kiernan every day. Work with the Foundation is getting increasingly more hectic as more athletes, with similar ambitions to Kiernan, come under their watch.
He will miss Kiernan’s love of Barcelona FC and his penchant for betting on horse racing. His friend’s punditry will sadly be absent from RTÉ’s coverage, along with the bundles of research he would impart to the nation, and the uncompromising honesty he brought to the job. He knows Kiernan would love to be here, supporting one of the best-ever track teams that Ireland has sent to the Olympics. He would surely have cast a keen eye over the men’s and women’s marathon taking place today and tomorrow in Paris. And through it all, he would have analysed all of the results with total sincerity and truth.
Coleman and Kiernan often travelled to Italy together, where the latter had an apartment. He was fluent in Italian, and possessed a tremendous knowledge of the local area surrounding Montanelli and Lake Garda. Those are the days, before his health declined, that Coleman will remember with the most fondness.
“Time spent with Jerry was never wasted.”
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