Irish Men in the Marathon at the Olympics...1948 to 2016

Following the men's marathon at the Rio Olympics recently, I had a closer look at the history of the event since the London Games of 1948. As you can see below, it puts into perspective the performance of Paul Pollock with his time of 2:16:24. He is now the third fastest Irish man is an Olympic Marathon.


A total of 22 Irish men have completed the Olympic Marathon between 1948 and 2016. Dick Hooper completed 3 (80, 84 & 88) while John Treacy completed 2 (1984 & 1992). (DNF's excluded)

This is a breakdown per year. Note the numbers between 1968 to 1992 and the complete absence in the following Games.

Year - Venue - Number of Irish Men
1948 - London - 1
1952 - Helsinki - 1
1956 - Melbourne - 0
1960 - Rome - 2 & 1 DNF
1964 - Tokyo - 1 DNF
1968 - Mexico - 2
1972 - Munich - 3
1976 - Montreal - 3
1980 - Moscow - 2
1984 - Los Angeles - 3
1988 - Seoul - 2 & 1 DNF
1992 - Barcelona - 2 & 1 DNF
1996 - Atlanta - 0
2000 - Sydney - 0
2004 - Athens - 0
2008 - Beijing - 1 DNF
2012 - London - 1
2016 - Rio de Janerio - 3 (Max team of 3)

Following the 2008 Games in Beijing, the Irish Marathon Mission was established to improve the standards of elite Irish runners. This has been mostly financed by the organisers of the Dublin City Marathon and as you can see, it has helped in getting a full team for 2016.

An easier qualification standard for the Rio Olympics probably helped as well though.

This chart shows more clearly the times of the 22 Irish men between 1948 and 2016. As you can see, Paul Pollock's performance in Rio was faster than a lot of other Irish men in previous Olympic marathons. Kevin Seaward's time was the 5th fastest.

It''s also worth noting just how fast John Treacy and Jerry Kiernan were relative to other Irish marathon runners.

Note that these times were all set on different courses and with different conditions so we can't do an exact comparison. Still though, they are all Olympic Marathon finals so they are similar in that respect.

As a footnote, the following Irish athletes competed in the Olympic Marathon for these other countries...
1912  Kennedy McArthur (Antrim) 2:36.55 for South Africa
1964  Peter McArdle (Dundalk) 2.26.25 for the USA
1988  Peter Maher 2:24.49   for Canada