Even that defiant run in Helsinki in 1983 was signed off with a distinct Coghlan flourish. On his way to winning the first World Championship 5,000 metres, he turned on the home straight and looked at Russia’s Dmitriy Dmitriyev.
“On Sunday I was down in Mondello Park with my mates, each time I go down there its more of a social thing than anything else. More of a chat, talk to the guys. You know it’s ‘come on Eamonn do a few laps. You’ve got your leathers on today, do a few laps.’ So up on the bike I got, did my few laps.”
Eamonn Coghlan displays his gold medal at a civic reception in Dublin hosted by lord mayor Michael Keating TD in 1983 after his victory in the World Championships 5000m in Helsinki. Photograph Jack McManus That career spanned two decades from when he travelled to Villanova College in the US in 1971 until 1994 on the Harvard University indoor track, when he became the first man aged over 40 to run a sub-four-minute mile. His years are a sprawling vista of records, championships and medals.
Eamonn Coghlan: Coghlan held the 1,500m indoor world record from 1979, when he first broke it. When it was next broken in 1997 by El Guerrouj, he’d had ownership of it for 18 years. Photograph: Inpho “He went to bed that night and passed away in his sleep. I remember getting up in the morning and my little daughter Susan was there. I said where’s grandad. She came down after looking at him and she says he’s fast asleep. Off I went and ran about six miles, whatever, did my stretching, came back and said ‘go check on grandad’. She came down again and said he’s still asleep. I said he couldn’t be asleep with the time change and jet lag he’d be awake early.
“I’d imported my rabbit, Ross Donoghue, who was a fellow New York Athletics Club teammate. He was to take me at 58-second pace all the way. I wanted to keep them even. Eamonn Coghlan signing autographs for young Irish fans in Arnott's of Henry Street, Dublin in 1976. Photograph: Jimmy McCormack Some were fast tracks, others slow. Some had loose boards, others steeply banked. Some had spring, others stiff. Although he earned the title Chairman of the Boards, Coghlan bridles at being labelled just an indoor runner. He ran all over Europe.
“It is not something I look back on with begrudgery. I’ve been very blessed by what I achieved in athletics. I’m talking about the microcosm of greatness, when it comes to the Olympic Games. If you are outside the first three, who cares. In the first three and ain’t you great. Growing up with Brian Kerr around Drimnagh in Dublin, football has also part of Coghlan’s street history. They lived across the road from each other and as toddlers were wheeled to the local shops in a twin pram. Kerr’s mother Margaret and Coghlan’s mother Kathleen were best friends. While Kerr took the football route, Coghlan’s epiphany came when he joined Celtic Athletic Club. The first race he ran in his first day at the club, he won.
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