Road
running is now all the rage, with literally hundreds
of people turning out two or three times a week for races of every
description
in the Cork area.
But it
might come as a surprise to fans of the Cork City
Sports that, 59 year ago next Saturday, a road race was part of the
programme
for the meeting which was held at the Mardyke.
Then in its
infancy, the sports took place at the old GAA
Grounds at the ‘Dyke and was under the laws of the NACAI. Of course all
track races
were over the imperial distances and ranged from a 220 yards youths
sprint to
the 1500m senior Irish championship.
Cycling
races were then a huge attraction at all the
grass track meetings and the City Sports included the two miles Irish
championship and a three miles open handicap on its programme.
But the one
event which stands out and which took place
for the one and only time at the Cork City Sports was an eight mile
road race
which started at the Grand Parade Monument.
The race
then proceeded out Washington Street and the
Western Road, out the Carrigrohane Straight before turning right onto
the Lee
Road, past St Josephs Hospital at six miles and the Mental Hospital to
finish
at the Gaelic Grounds.
Nowadays,
numbers in excess of 600 are not unusual for an
evening road race in Cork but on that occasion just 13 runners toed the
line at
the Grand Parade.
It was a
handicap race, with most of that small field
starting off two to two-and-a-half minutes ahead of the scratch man,
Joe West
of the Rising Sun club. The closest to him at the start was Johnny
Harte from
Carrigtwiohill who had just a one-minute handicap.
Joe West
was born and reared in Carrigaline and started
off his athletics career with the local Owenabui club, winning the Cork
senior
cross-title on three occasions. In 1947, he emigrated to England and
joined
Coventry Godiva Harriers. While across the water, he won several road
races and
also gained honours at regional and national level with the famous
Harriers.
In 1952, he
was invited back to Dublin to take part in
the marathon trial for that year’s Olympic Games in Helsinki. Despite
not
having run further than 15 miles, he duly won the race and followed
that up
with an 11th place in the classic Polytechnic marathon from Windsor to
Chiswick, recording a time of 2:32.
At the
Olympics in Helsinki, West gallantly completed the
distance in a time of 2:56:22, finishing in 49th place in a race
famously won
by Emil Zatopek who had already taken the gold medals in both the 5000m
and
10,000m on the track.
And so, on
that July evening almost 60 years ago, the
large attendance at the Mardyke were able to witness one of their own,
an
Olympian marathoner, come into the Gaelic Grounds as winner of the
eight-mile
road race. West’s time was 45 minutes and 44 seconds and in second
place was
Ted Geary from Ballymore with P Reid from Dowdallshill
in third.
That Cork
City Sports meeting was described as easily the
most successful sports fixture seen in Munster for many a year.
A new Irish
record of 14.8 seconds for the 120 yards
hurdles was set by E F Kinsella from the St James Gate club in Dublin
but the
outstanding athlete of the evening was Finbarr Callanan of UCD who won
the 100
yards, the long jump and finished second in the hurdles.
Callanan became one of the first athletes to be awarded the American Trophy which was presented by Mrs Taft, wife of the American Ambassador to Ireland, William H Taft.