From "Irish Olympians 1896-1992"
- with Johnny Watterson
Dr. Pat and Mr. Bob - two traditions
It was a bright sunny day in Los Angeles where the tenth Olympic Games were taking place. The time was just before 3 o'clock and crouched down beside the hammer circle was the dapper figure of Bob Tisdall, who less than an hour earlier had won the 400m hurdles.
With him was the reigning Olympic champion, Dr. Pat O'Callaghan and in both their hands was a boot with long spikes; these they were frantically trying to grind down. Dr. Pat had just one throw left and he was trailing Finland's Ville Porhola who had a best of 171' 6" (52.27). But his boots were holding him back. The spikes, ideal for the muddy circles of Ireland, were no use at all in Los Angeles where the sun had baked the ground hard.
In the earlier rounds, Perhola, with a curious jumping style, had thrown consistently close to 170' - his best of 171'6 " came with his third attempt. Dr. Pat, despite the frustrations of his spikes, was getting closer with every heave and his third round throw, put him within 3 inches of the Finnish flag.
At this point, he realised something had to be done about his shoes. "When I tried really hard in the third round and was still three inches short of Perhola's lead that was now 52.27m, I became concerned. It was then I realised fully that my spikes were too long," he told Irish Runner magazine in 1982, fifty years later. Thinking fast, he borrowed a hacksaw and file from the track caretaker's office. "I started filing but it was making no impression. So then I decided to cut them off altogether with the hacksaw. Fortunately, the competition was held up during the 400m hurdles and as soon as Bob won, he came over to help me."
By now, the immense crowd was watching every move at the hammer circle. O'Callaghan, with his broth of a boy good looks and ready smile, had become one of the personalities of the games and he had the crowd right behind him. They held their collective breath as he took his next two throws - but neither improved on his earlier efforts.
Now he had just one chance left and with his shoes at last flattened to his satisfaction, Dr Pat took his place at the back of the circle. He lifted his hammer, the picture of determination, and swung it four times over his head before letting it fly away high above the cluster of small flags marking previous throws.
Some way beyond any of these was the flag marking the Olympic record of Matt McGrath, set in 1912, a distance of 177'7". Dr. Pat's hammer landed less than a foot short of that mark - a distance of 176'11". The crowd went wild - even Perhola applauded as he watched the officials move the peg with the Irish Free State tricolour to its new mark.
The Finn had one throw left and in a hushed silence, he took up his stance. He slowly swung his missile, then spun rhythmically, increasing his speed with every rotation, let it fly - and failed to reach even his previous best. The Irish Free State had won its second gold medal in one sun-blessed and magical Californian hour.
It couldn't have happened to two more different characters - Pat O'Callaghan, the huge Corkman, coming from a tradition that went back through countless village fairs and celebrations to the ancient Tailteann Games; Bob Tisdall, the gentleman amateur, a product of the public school and Cambridge University ethos of muscular Christianity. Not that Dr. Pat was anything like an Irish peasant; the very fact that his family would send him to university was indication of that. But he was large man and ready material for the many tales and yarns that were to grow up around him until his death in 1991 at the age of 86.
He came from Munster, steeped in a rural culture that included throwing weights of various proportions. The tradition went back as far as Cuchulainn, hero of the Red Branch knights, who legend has it, could throw a huge stone lashed to the wooden beam of a chariot wheel prodigious distances. This was the era of the Tailteann Games, the oldest of all sporting festivals, which date from 1829 BC. The first documentary evidence of the Olympics dates them from 772 BC, and even if they had begun 600 years earlier than that, as commentators argue, they still came after the Irish festival, which continued until the Norman invasion of 1128 AD. During the Middle Ages, the makeshift implements thrown by the ancient warriors were replaced by items such as the sledge hammer used by blacksmiths. Henry Vlll was known for his prowess at "throwing the sledge", as was Matt the Thrasher, who helped redeem the honour of Charles J. Kickham's fictional village of Knocknagow when he challenged and beat the interloper Captain French in a test of strength. The technique for throwing the sledge in Knocknagow seems similar to what we know today. This is the description of Captain French's first throw: "He took the heavy sledge, and placing his foot to the mark, swung it backwards and forwards twice, and then wheeling rapidly full round, brought his foot to the mark again, and flying from his arms as from a catapult, the sledge sailed through the air, and fell at a distance that seemed to startle many of the spectators."
This was the Celtic style; in the USA, throwers couldn't move their feet, which is one possible reason why the Irish who had emigated to the USA dominated the event when the rules were standardised at the turn of the century.
By then, the event had changed beyond all recognition. The wooden bar had been replaced by 1.22m of piano wire attached to a special handle and grasped in both hands, while the old and very dangerous style of throwing with run and follow had been replaced by restricting the throwers to a circle standardised at 7 ft. from 1908.
Into this circle stepped the long tradition of emigrants to the New World who became known as "the Irish whales". They had always travelled for competition - the first great Irish hammer thrower was William Barry from Cork, who won the British AAA title five times between 1885 and 1985. With a primitive one turn technique, his best throw was 41.98 from a 2.50 circle (larger than 7'). Next was James Mitchell, from Tipperary, who brought the world best from a 7' circle up to 44m.21m, and took nine US titles after travelling to the USA with the GAA organised "Irish Invasion" in 1888 and opting to stay on.
This was the man who set Irish records in a diversity of events - the 56lb for height, 13" weight one hand, 56 lb unlimited run and follow; 14 lb weight from shoulder, 7lb weight and 16 lb hammer (with 3'6" handles and unlimited run and follow). It gives an idea of the range of Irish throwing events still popular until quite recently - and subject of much heated debate in GAA circles at the turn of the century. At the 1904 Olympics, Mitchell only finished fifth in the hammer - the winner was Limerick man John Flanagan, father of the modern event, taking his second title. He was to win a further gold medal in 1908 with a mighty throw of 51.92 when aged 36. He returned to Ireland three years later, after breaking the world record one last time in 1909 with a throw of 55.19 using the three turn technique he had perfected. Flanagan was in the great Irish tradition of all rounders - a tradition encouraged by the system of handicapping, then the norm in Irish athletics, which meant that athletes tended to avoid their best events, where they would have no chance of winning a prize. He wasn't a huge man, weighing only 90kg when he first arrived in the USA and throughout his career, relied on the natural agility which had allowed him to long jump 6.70m and triple jump 14.04m.
He was a great student of the sport, first introducing the two turn technique after his world record was snatched from him by fellow Limerick man Tom Kiely, the man who was to take the All Round title at the St. Louis Games in 1904.
At that time, the Irish completely dominated the event - the only discipline on the Olympic schedule which didn't come from the ancient Greek tradition. In 1908, the top three at the Olympics were Irish, with Matt McGrath and Con Walsh taking silver and bronze behind Flanagan, all representing the USA. McGrath in particular was to prove a prodigious competitor - he took gold in 1912, then finished fifth in 1920 behind another Irishman, Pat Ryan, before coming back in 1924 at the age of 45 to take silver. He even took part in the US trials four years later when he finished below his best in ffith place. Such was the outcry when he wasn't selected that a public collection was taken up to send him.
But it was another colossus of Irish throwing who caught the eye of a six year old Pat O'Callaghan at the Banteer Games, one of the highlights of the GAA's annual athletic programme. He was Denis Horgan, shot putter extraordinaire, who had the world record to his credit and had taken silver at the 1908 games. Here was the stuff of legend - Horgan, the year before that medal winning performance, had almost died after he was hit on the head by a shovel while on the beat as a New York cop.
The young O'Callaghan was suitably impressed. As he grew up, he was to excel at all sport, playing both gaelic football and rugby, and as legend would have it, converting a touchline penalty from 75 yards out during one rugby match. In the ancient barony of Duhollow where he lived, a strong athletic tradition flourished and the young Pat with his brothers, including future Olympic decathlete Con, and another brother Sean, was a regular at the Sunday afternoon sports held throughout the summer, which attracted crowds of up to 10,000.
With his ability to hurdle and jump, as well as throw the discus, the shot and the 56lb weight, he did well at these local fairs, and always came home with an armful of prizes. One such outing provided a classic O'Callaghan anecdote. With Con, Pat had cycled 70 miles to a meet, where he won four events. After attending the local dance, it was time to return home. So with the sun just about rising, they headed for Kanturk. By this time, not unsurprisingly, the pair had developed a fierce and very unconvenient hunger, since at that hour of the morning, the world was still asleep. Fortunately for the lads, the local cattle were not - they were up and about and browsing away in the fields. Fortunately also, the lads had won a large salad bowl as part of their spoils. It took only a few moments for them to nip over a ditch, milk a compliant cow and drink their full before continuing with their journey.
Despite his regular attendance at sporting events, it wasn't until Pat came to Dublin to study medicine that he first saw a hammer. This was at the UCD grounds in Terenure where he spied a man throwing this highly unusual - and costly - object at the end of the field. The prized hammer was jealously guarded by its owner - but when O'Callaghan discovered that he kept it in the gatekeeper's lodge, he found a way of "borrowing" it for some exploratory throws. His main goal in life now was to find himself a similar implement. During the summer, a pile of cannonballs outside Macroom Castle caught his eye. He managed to acquire a couple and then made his own hammer with the help of the local blacksmith by boring a hole in the ball and inserting some steel clothes line.
Back in Dublin, O'Callaghan entered the hammer at the Garda sports meeting in Croke Park, winning it with an unremarkable best of 136'1 1/2". Two weeks later, he attracted a little more notice when he beat reigning champion Bill Britton for the Irish title with a throw of 142' 3" - the worst winning throw at the Irish championships in a decade. He improved that to 151 '5 1/2" at the annual triangular international against England and Scotland in Manchester, where he finished second behind Malcolm Nokes of England. On August 1, he was back to 140' at the Ireland V Achilles club match at Croke Park, where he trailed in third behind Nokes and Britton.
It was sometime around this period that, on his way to lectures inteh College of Surgeons, he was approached by a small dapper man. John Tallon declared that he would make him the greatest hammer champion ever, with all the persuasive powers of a man with a passion. O'Callaghan paid him close attention.
No one quite knew where this Dublin tailor acquired his knowledge of hammer throwing, but he proved very useful to O'Callaghan - not that he listened to everything Tallon preached. To the end of his career, he started his turns on his heel and then went up on his toes, a source of great sorrow to Tallon, who believed strongly in starting and finishing on the toes. Tallon later coached Bert Healion, the dominant thrower of the war years, and later again, John Lawlor, who was to come fourth at the 1960 games. O' Callaghan had developed his technique with the help of a Grada superintendent, Dinny Carey. "Dinny was a man of high intelligence and he impressed on me the importance of a fundamental idea in that you must never lose contact with the ground when turning in the circle. That was contrary to the belief at the time as throwers lifted from the ground as they turned."
Another man O'Callaghan listened to was John Flanagan, who helped him perfect his technique. The result was that just a year after he first swung a hammer, he qualified for the Olympic Games when he threw 162' 6" to retain his Irish title. Three weeks later, he improved this to 166'11" at Athlone; he was in good form. Still, a mighty task awaited him in Amsterdam. Both the Swede Ossian Skjold and the Briton Malcolm Nokes had thrown over 170', while the American Edmund Black had a best of 166' 4 1/4".
As it turned out, only O'Callaghan and Skjold came anywhere near 170', and going into the final three throws, the Corkman was lying third. He had to produce something special and, ever the man for the big occasion, set Skjold a target of 168' 7 1/2" with his second last throw. It was enough to win him the gold by just four inches - and the Irish Free State its first official Olympic medal. He was typically laconic about his achievement. "All the competitors were sitting on the bench awaiting our turn to throw. No one was talking to anyone, only possibly to themselves. I was a bit back after the first round, sixth or seventh. I was happy to make the final and then in the fourth round, I went into the lead over Ossian Skjold and that was the end of it."
Back home, only days after huge crowds lined the streets of Kanturk to greet him, he returned to Croke Park for the Tailteann Games, where he broke 170' for the first time, setting a new Irish record of 170' 7 1/2". In the four years until the next Olympics at Los Angeles, he established himself as the dominant thrower of his era. Not only that, but despite weighing over 16 stone, he won his first of three Irish high jump titles in 1930, with a jump of 6'0", which he was to improve to 6'2" when tying for first place at the annual triangular match against England and Scotland.
That year, the man was ubiquitous. As well as the hammer and high jump, he also won national titles at the 16lbs shot, and both 56lbs events - for distance and over the bar. A year later, he added the discus title to his collection, just missing the European record with a personal best of 178' 8 1/2".
By 1932, Dr. Pat, as he was now universally known, was working as a doctor at Clonmel Mental Hosptial and had to request special leave to travel to Los Angeles. This created a small controversy, when certain members of the Mental Hospitals Committee felt that he should pay for his replacement. Happily, no one listened and the good doctor was given three months leave without further argument. He had qualified with ease for the games, throwing 163'9" at the Olympic trials in Croke Park, following this up with 169'4" at the RUC Games in Belfast and then 167' 11" when winning his fifth national title two weeks later.
General Eoin O'Duffy, then president of the Olympic Council of Ireland, had made sure that nothing was left to chance for these games. After they had all qualified, he assembled the athletics team in Ballybunion for three weeks of training before the long journey to California. But although Dr. Pat at the end of that was as fit as ever in his life, the intense heat on the journey meant that even the six raw eggs he insisted on having for breakfast weren't enough to keep him at his fighting weight. Still, it didn't seem to harm him too much and on August 1, 1932, exactly four years to the day, he defended successfully his Olympic title.
Despite his dashing and extrovert manner, O'Callaghan was a serious student of his event, and after 1932, started experimenting with a four turn technique developed by the American Don Quinn. This gave him a European record of 56.95m in 1933, a year in which he didn't feature at all at the national championships. He did however play a part in the long discussion on the NACAI's claim to rule over the 32 counties of Ireland which had them under threat of expulsion from the IAAF. A decision, he felt, should be postponed until the British and Irish governments could decide on their political bounderies. It didn't happen and the NACAI were duly banned.
Despite all the controversy and the uncertain position of the NACAI internationally, Dr. Pat competed in Amsterdam in July 1935, where he won the hammer with a throw of 168' 7". A year later, he was forced to watch the Berlin Olympics from the stands, but still, Dr. Pat stuck with the NACAI, even after the foundation of the Amateur Athletic Union of Eire in 1937.
That was the year he set an unofficial world record of 195' 4 7/8" (59.56m) in Fermoy, beating Paddy Ryan's mark of 189' 6 1/2" (57.77m) set in 1913. The town surveyor J.J. Bowman was called that day to measure the throw with a chain, after one of the officials carefully covered the mark with his cap to protect it. But despite all the precautions, the record couldn't be ratified because of the NACAI's uncertain international status. It was another 12 years before the Hungarian Imre Nemeth went better than Dr. Pat on that day in Fermoy when he threw 59.57m. By now, O'Callaghan had a private medical practise in Tipperary, but after an unfortunate accident in which a child was killed by a flying hammer just before the second world war, he migrated to the USA, where he took up professional wrestling. Once, getting annoyed with his opponant, he seized him by the ankles, spun him around his head and flung him into the crowd.
Around this same time, attempts to set up a match with world wrestling champion, Dan O'Mahoney, another highly visible Irishman of the time, fizzled out. Hollywood also beckoned. Sam Goldwyn offered him the part of Tarzan, he played handball with Bing Crosby and was a house guest of the Kellys of Philadelphia, whose daughter Grace was to become princess of Monaco.
In his later years, Dr. Pat, by now back in Clonmel, contiuned his busy medical practise, revered and loved in the community he served for over 40 years. He became a model rural gentleman, hunting, shooting and fishing. He died after a long, full life in 1991.
Robert Morton Newburgh Tisdall was a very different type of Irishman. He may have grown up in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, and like Dr. Pat O'Callaghan, he loved the Irish countryside, but by background and temperament, he was the quintessential public school boy, of the type revered by Pierre de Coubertin. He was born in Ceylon and grew up with sport in the blood. His grandfather was the first president of Nenagh Cycling Club, while his father had been a 100 yd hurdling champion and his uncle played football for Nenagh Ormondes, like the young Bob later in his career.
Growing up in rural Ireland certainly influenced him. A visit to a travelling circus turned him into a fledgling acrobat, and he spent spent many weeks afterwards turning cartwheels, walking on his hands and using tree branches as trapezes. After a few years at the local Parochial School, this aptitude for gymnastics was further developed at Edgeburth preparatory school and later Mourne Grange in Co.Down. By the time he entered public school at Shrewsbury, he was already a skilled athlete, although small for his age at just 5'2".
In his first year, he shone at a number of junior events, but by 14, the fascination of hurdling had already gripped him. It was an event, as he was to write later in his book "The Young Athlete", where much depended on skill and precision; strength and speed just weren't enough. He loved his sport almost without exception. That exception was cross country running, which he abhorred. The compulsory runs, he felt, should be abolished - plodding around muddy fields on cold, wet wintewr days put many youngsters off athletics for life.
For Tisdall, sport was a joyful activity. The main pleasure lay in training the mind and body to work in perfect harmony. Prizes didn't enter into it - indeed, they were liable to foster a spirit of selfishness which he saw as contrary to the true spirit of sportsmanship.
By the time he left Shrewsbury, young Bob had improved his 110 yard hurdle time to 16.4 secs, despite using a bent leading leg technique and shooting up to 6 ft, a sudden spurt of growth that left his constantly tired.
After school, he didn't immediately go up to Cambridge, but took a job in a London office. This didn't agree with his health - after ten months, he fell ill and an x-ray found a deposit of soot in his lungs. He was promptly sent back to Tipperary to recover, and set his sights on Cambridge, largely to further his athletic ambitions, and despite being academically unqualified at the time. So it wasn't until he was in his 21st year that young Bob embarked on college life after spending the summer running a passengar boat on the river Shannon.
Although he hadn't so much as put on an athletics shoe in the two and a half years since he left shcool, Bob was now back in good health and devoted his freshman year to putting the shot and rebuilding his strength. By the following year, he was back hurdling, winning the inter varsity 220 yards low-hurdles and travelling to South Africa with a combined Oxford Cambridge team, where he competed in the shot, the high and low hurdles and the 220 yards flat. There also he discovered the benefits of competing at altitude - Johannesburg was 600 ft above sea level. He also continued to compete in Ireland and in 1930, won the 120 yds high hurdles in Croke Park with a time of 15.8 secs. That was also the year he ran his first ever 400m hurdles race, competing in Athens with the Achilles Club team, made up of past and present athletes from Cambridge and Oxford. To add to the occasion, it took place on the ancient Olympic track - two 160 yards straights joined by semi circles at each end.
The feat that made him a household name in athletic circles came the following year. This was his stunning display in the annual colours match between Cambridge and Oxford on a very cold March afternoon in 1931, during his final year as a student.
Tisdall was athletics club captain that year, and so had the responsibility of selecting the strongest team possible. After a lot of soul searching, he selected himself for four of the eight events - but not for his specialist event, the 220 yards hurdles. For this event, he selected his friend Ralph Brown, who he was convinced could win. Tisdall duly won the high hurdles, long jump, shot and quarter mile, and as he was carried from the track on the shoulders of his team mates, Brown offered to step down from the 220 hurdles so that his friend could attempt a fifth win. Typically, Tisdall wouldn't hear of it. He was equally diffident about his achievement; on such a cold day, he had been fortunate that each event had warmed him up for the one following, he said. Later that year, Tisdall was selected for the annual Ireland V Scotland match, but could only finish second in the 110 yard hurdles behind UCD's Theo Phelan, the Olympic triple jumper from 1928. Dr. Pat O'Callaghan won the shot and hammer at the same match.
Around this period, Tisdall suffered something of a disaster when he fell from a window ledge and broke his ankle. So it was with a certain amount of trepidation that the following year, he wrote to Ireland's NACAI president General Eoin O'Duffy asking to be considered for the Irish team. O'Duffy liked the man's cheek - but was a bit surprised that the young London based athlete wished to be considered for the 400m hurdles, an event he had only ever run once.
But Tisdall was alsolutely serious about his choice of events, and when the invitation to compete in the trials came through, he was very conscious that he wasn't fit. He'd been working at a job that had given him little opportunity to train, although he had continued to do some exercises in his bathroom every day.
So in May of that year, he took time off work and, with his new wife, went to live in an old railway carriage in Sussex. There he ran five miles across the South Downs two or three times a week and made a couple of visits to the Lancing College track nearby. He also put in some javelin throwing and pole vaulting and led a healthy outdoor life involving much chopping, digging and drawing of water.
Unfortunatly, he also picked up a lingering cold and by the time he got to Croke Park for the Olympic trials, could only manage a time of 56. 2 secs. But he refused to be disheartened and persuaded General O'Duffy that he could go at least two seconds faster. So with the rest of the Irish team, he set off for squad training in Ballybunion, where his old Cambridge mentor, Alex Nelson was in charge. After ten days, he felt like a new man and proved it at the national track and field championships. He not only took the promised two seconds off his time but set a new Irish record of 54.2. This time, unpaced and on grass, was .2 of a second faster than the winning time at the British AAA championships the previous year when the Italian Fracelli had beaten the reigning Olympic champion Lord Burghley. Tisdall, for good measure, also won the 120 yard hurdles. He then returned breifely to London, where with his friend and rival, Lord Burghley, he was part of the Achilles team beaten at the AAA relays.
So it was off to the USA. The journey proved a nightmare - after the week-long sea journey, the team took the train to Los Angeles, stopping briefly in Chicago and Denver for some training before hitting the deserts of Colorado and Nebaska. Here the temperatures had soared to 118 degrees, making it impossible to sleep and causing all the athletes to lose weight. When Tisdall discovered that he had dropped 8 lbs off his racing weight of 11 st 11 lb with just a fortnight left before his event, he decided on drastic action. He needed rest and he needed his weight back, so for eight days, he spent 15 of every 24 hours in bed and didn't run a yard. Three days before his first race, he tried to run gently in bare feet on grass and found that his dodgy ankle was acting up. He put this down to nerves and after frequent massages, using a mixture of olive oil and poteen, he felt totally renewed. Indeed, so confident and energetic did he feel on the day of his first race that he didn't even attempt a practise run.
After winning his heat in 54.63, he drove back to the Olympic village two minutes distant. There he had a light massage and then drank a glass of milk with two raw eggs, followed by a cup of tea with plenty of sugar. After lying down for an hour, he stretched thoroughly and returned to the track, feeling as frisky as a racehorse. As for his heat, he drew lane five and duly won the race, his time of 52.8 exactly the same as that clocked by the American Glen Harding in the first heat, and a new Olympic record.
Next day, he prepared for the final with a stroll after breakfast. He then lay down until lunch and after drinking several glasses of water to guard against dehydration, changed and headed for the track. At 2.45pm, he warmed up with Lord Burghley, who had reached Los Angeles just three days previously. Then a last minute crisis. He had lost his number. Fortunately, the organisers were able to print another, but he agonised a little as the ink refused to dry. At last it was time for the draw, and putting his hand in the hat, Tisdall drew lane 3. This he regarded as a good omen - he had alrady drawn lane five twice and his race number was 253. As they got to their marks, he heard the clock strike and with Lord Burghley, drawn two lanes outside him, just in front, fleetingly imagined that he was back at Fenners, the Cambridge track. The gun at last fired, an eternity after the order to "get set" and they were off. The first hurdles went like clockwork, Tisdall landing just ahead of the rest. But just as he reached the seventh, teh excitement got too much for the race commentator. "Tisdall leads" he roared out. It put Tusdall right off his stroke and having los this rhythm, he was forced to stretch for the eighth hurdle. Fortunately, he recovered his balance and turned into the straight with a good lead on Morgan Taylor and Lord Burghley.
But it wasn't quite over: in his final headlong rush for the line, Tisdall hit the last remaining hurdle. He stumbled for a few strides, with Hardin, Morgan and Burghley bearing down on him all the time. Fortunately, he still had a yard to spare and he crossed the line in 51.8. An unbelievable gold medal for Ireland - and a new world record, though this wasn't recognised because he had hit an obstacle. Hardin in second place was given the new record of 51.9.
Hardly pausing for breath, Tisdall immediately went over to the hammer circle to help Dr Pat O'Callaghan file the spikes off his boots. Only when his friend unleashed his final throw to retain his hammer crown, did the emotion of the occasion hit him. As pandemonium broke out in the stadium, he found himself completely choked with emotion.
Back in fourth place that day was Lord Burghley, seemingly pleased enough to have set a new British record. But did he ever forgive Tisdall for beating him - and for being an Irishman ? He was, after all, intrumental in barring the NACAI from the IAAF in 1936 and did nothing to help the situation in 1948 as president of the British organising committee for the London Olympics. The Los Angeles adventure wasn't over for Tisdall - four days later, he turned out in the decathlon and after some good performances, most notably a 49 sec time for 400m, found he was lying sixth after the first day.
After his splendid gold medal, he was finding it diffuclt to motivate himself. "I found the most exhausting part of the decathlon was hanging around in the stadium in the heat all day long waiting for your name to be called to compete," he recalled sixty years later.
Such indeed was the heat that he fell asleep in the stadium after the eighth event on the second day. A starting pistol shocked him back to life and he went on to run a good time of 15.1 in the 110m hurdles.
So it was on to the final event and his first race ever over 1500m. He remembers that race very well. "There was still a lap to go when dragging myself out of a sort of coma, I realized I was lying second, being led by a huge man plodding along about 40 yards ahead of me.This will never do, Ithought, and somehow getting on to my toes, I was after him. I can remember the crowd roaring as I slowly overhauled him. We made it a dead heat. An ideal finish to the games. "
As he crossed the line, he felt as if his his legs had suddenly melted and that he was sailing through the air. Had he gone to heaven without the inconveniance of death ? Not quite - as he left the track, this most popular sportsman was hoisted on to the shoulders of his exhuberant team mates. He had finished eighth overall.
He returned from the games, as he put it, with a gold medal in one pocket and nothing in the other, to join a two million queue of umemployed in Britain. He got a job selling pictures and jewelry and then another building a golf course. That paid him 30 shillings a week. Then in January 1933, he was offered a teaching job in South Africa, the birthplace of his wife, and off he went. After two and a half years of that, he borrowed some money and started a gymnasium in Johannesburg, where he had all ages boxing wrestling, fencing and keeping fit. He couldn't afford to even think of competing in Berlin. "There was no aid for athletics at that time. I ran in the RUC Sports in Belfast one time and found a #5 note in the toe of my shoe. I handed it up to some official," he told Irish Runner in 1982.
He became president of the local athletic club, and continued to compete every weekend in league events. In 1938, he ran 14. 8 secs for the 110m hurdles-his fastest ever-while training Tom Lavery for the Empire Games in Sydney and putt 44 ft for the shot, another personal best.
He was secretary of the South African Amateur Wrestling Association and a mamber of the national Olympic council when war broke out. Disaster struck again: with mounting debts, his gymnasium was forced to close. "But I joined a committee to form the South African Irish Regiment and off I went for five and a half years in uniform." Afterwards, the Tisdalls settled in Tanganyika, now Tanzania.
His farm out there was called "Tipperary"; his daughter, Nena. As president of the Tanganyika Association, he helped provide tracks and state aid for athletics, laying the basis for the remarkable renaissance of African sport.
On a visit back to Nenagh in 1952, Tisdall presented the prizes at a local meet. With his usual modesty, he would accept no part of the credit for the rebirth of athletics in the town which now houses Ireland's national indoor arena. In later years, from his base in Queensland, Australia, he made regular visits home, indulging in his passion for yachting with his sister and her family, who still live just outside Nenagh. Even in his eighties, he would run the occasional road race in Australia, still enjoying finding out just how well he could do.
Tisdall's views on athletics are still relevant today. He didn't believe in young people overtraining or specialising too soon. Better, he believed, to develop many all rounders than just one star. Above all, he disliked the idea of professional sport - sport shouldn't be taken too seriously and it should be fun. He shared this Corinthian view with his fellow Munster man, Pat O'Callaghan. Gentlemen and amateurs both.