RIP: 1956 Olympic 1500m gold medallist Ronnie Delany has died at age 91
-
476
-
Another great Irishman. The Irish are tremendous people, and this man was another great one. RIP to this legend.
412 -
rojo wrote:
Cathal Dennehy has the story.
In addition to his Olympic exploits, he was a 4-time NCAA champion for Villanova, as he the won the Mile in back-to-back years (1957, 1958) to go along with titles in the 1500 meters in 1956 and the 880 yards in 1958.
RIP
102 -
RIP indeed. If I remember the history correctly, he started the long line of Villanova Irish middle distance runners.
242 -
Ran a faster Olympic gold than Centro back in ‘56.
RIP Mr. Delaney
324 -
1955 wrote:
RIP indeed. If I remember the history correctly, he started the long line of Villanova Irish middle distance runners.
He was very well liked by his peers and track fans back then too.
132 -
Yes it seems so. Peter Snell wrote fondly about riding from the airport to Santry in the early 1960s in Ron's MG.
133 -
Fantastic human being. Definitely started the Irish presence in the usa college system. Met him in the middle 90s and you could tell he still had a fire for the sport. RIP.
192 -
Won 40 consecutive mile races indoor from 1956 - 1959 , up there with ovetts streak i think of 45
162 -
My grandfather ran the 880 and the mile at Holy Cross (MA) at the same time Ronnie was in college. Among the collection of artifacts from his running past were newspaper clipping reports of Ronnies win in NCAA indoor and the Olympics. Both have tack holes, so I imagine they hung in his dorm. I believe they raced each other at Penn relays by piecing together his papers. My grandfather and his high school best friend ran track together all the way through college and wrote extensively about their experience of the sport together for the school paper. Somehow, we never talked about it.
183 -
Nice tribute from Lord Coe
132 -
That NCAA championship team in 1957 for Villanova was very very good with multiple Olympians.
Very few athletes from that era of Nova are still with us - Charlie Jenkins and Alex Breckenridge?
42 -
In addition to his mid distance exploits, Delany also ran the third leg on Villanova’s 1958 Penn Relays winning mile relay team, which set a meet record that wasn’t broken until they installed a synthetic track in 1969.
RIP
42 -
RIP Ron, a long life well lived. When I was growing up in Ireland one of my school coaches told me about Ron. I remember he said Ron was one of the first ten guys to break 4 mins after Bannister.
92 -
Delany's 3:57.5 was the 4th fastest of all time when he ran it in 1958 (though only 3rd in the race, behind Herb Elliott's WR and also Merv Lincoln, who I hadn't known of before today). The World Athletics article only mentions his first sub-4.
80 -
1955 wrote:
RIP indeed. If I remember the history correctly, he started the long line of Villanova Irish middle distance runners.
He didn’t start it, but he was one of the early ones. Joe John Barry (class of ‘53) was the first mid-D runner.
40
4 posts were removed from this page.