With the New York City Marathon taking place this Sunday, we’re looking back at some memorable Irish performances on the streets of the Big Apple. For John Treacy, the 1988 race brought a podium finish just five weeks after Olympic disappointment.
On the 6th of November that year, the Waterford runner finished third in 2:13:18, behind Britain’s Steve Jones and Italy’s Salvatore Bettiol. Having failed to finish the Olympic marathon in Seoul, he had considered drawing a line under his season and taking a holiday.
Instead, he went to New York.
A Year Of Highs And Disappointment
Treacy had already produced one of the finest marathon performances of his career that spring. Third in Boston in 2:09:15, he had set an Irish record and improved on the 2:09:56 that earned him Olympic silver in Los Angeles four years earlier. rte.ie
The form was there. Getting it to coincide with the Olympic Games proved another matter.
Looking back in a 2015 interview with RTÉ, Treacy said he had been running particularly well on the American roads in 1988, but believed he had peaked too early.
“I probably peaked too early 1988 and I didn’t have anything in the final.”
His Olympic marathon ended without a finish on October 2nd. For the silver medallist from the previous Games, it was a bitter outcome in a season that had promised so much.
Yet his racing year was not over.
A Holiday Put On Hold
A contemporary report in the Manchester Herald reveals that Treacy had been looking forward to a long holiday after the Olympics.
Instead, he ran a 10K in Baltimore to assess his form. He won there on 23 October in 28:29, then turned his attention to New York.
“I’m running in New York because I have all the work done as far as marathon training,” he explained.
That detail gives the decision its context. The preparation for Seoul was already behind him. New York offered another opportunity to put it to use.
Two weeks after Baltimore, and exactly five weeks after the Olympic marathon, the 31 year old was back on a marathon start line.
Third Behind A Dominant Steve Jones
Jones settled the contest for victory with a decisive move on the Queensboro Bridge.
The Welshman won in 2:08:20, finishing three minutes and 21 seconds ahead of Bettiol, who clocked 2:11:41. It was an emphatic victory.
Treacy stayed with the chasing pack, which caught early leader Juan Romera around 12 miles, rather than following the Spaniard’s initial break. There was drama ahead of him later, with Bettiol stopping briefly because of leg cramps before continuing to finish second. Treacy crossed the line in third, 32 seconds ahead of Tanzania’s Gidamis Shahanga. Romera, meanwhile, finished 22nd in 2:19:05, almost six minutes behind the Irishman.
Treacy’s time was slower than his Boston performance that April, but the significance was in the result. He had followed an Olympic disappointment with a podium finish in New York, adding a second third place at a major American marathon that year.
The women’s race provided another landmark that afternoon, with Norway’s Grete Waitz winning her ninth New York title in 2:28:07.
An Irish Performance Worth Remembering
Treacy’s Los Angeles silver understandably occupies a special position in Irish sporting memory. His New York result belongs in the wider account of how good a marathon runner he was.
Boston and New York both brought podium finishes in 1988. He would finish third in Boston again the following spring, running 2:10:24.
That sequence also gives some perspective to Seoul. The Olympic disappointment was real, but it was one result in a period when Treacy was repeatedly competing near the front of major international marathons.
As attention turns to New York again this weekend, his 1988 run is worth remembering in its own right: 2:13:18, third across the line, and an Irish athlete on the podium.
