Olympics
In 1928, Ireland, as an independent nation, had won its first Olympic gold medal at Amsterdam with Dr Pat O'Callaghan's unexpected victory in the hammer event. At the time he was barely out of the novice class and he had been included in the Irish Team mainly to gain experience of top-class competition. Over the years, he was to develop into one of the world's greatest hammer-throwers and he demonstrated this by winning his second Olympic gold medal at Los Angeles in 1932.
This in fact brought a very special moment in Olympic history for Ireland. Within the short space of an hour Ireland won two Olympic gold medals on Monday, 1 August 1932.
The first was won by Tisdall. His father won the All-Irish Sprint Championship; his mother played hockey for Ireland and was a formidable golfer. His Olympic victory had the "element of a fairy tale about it", as one commentator put it.
Tisdall had, in the midst of The Depression, what he describes as "the best job in the world", as an aide to a young Indian Maharaja, escorting him around Europe, showing him the cultural and natural sights. To pursue his Olympic dream, Tisdall had to leave this job and live in a disused railway carriage in an orchard, where he trained by running around the rows of trees. Early in 1932, he wrote to General Eoin O'Duffy, then the President of the Olympic Council of Ireland, and asked to be considered for the Irish Olympic Team in the 400 metres hurdles and he also confessed that he had not previously run in the event.
O'Duffy was convinced that Tisdall could achieve a good time and later invited Tisdall to compete in a special Olympic trial at Croke Park in Dublin. Tisdall failed to make the qualifying time, but O'Duffy gave him another chance and Tisdall qualified for the Irish Team by winning the National 440 yards (402 m) hurdles title at the Irish Championships, also at Croke Park. At the team training camp, Tisdall discovered that there were no hurdles, so he collected driftwood from the beach and set up some crude hurdles on the greyhound racing track. This took him much of the morning, but just when he was ready to hurdle, someone activated the mechanical rabbit, which sped around the track rail, promptly knocking all the makeshift hurdles over. Finding out that there were hurdles available at a local girls' school, Tisdall cycled there and back each day, to use the hurdles, as the students were on vacation.
After winning his preliminary Olympic heat in Los Angeles, Tisdall equalled the Olympic record of 52.8 seconds in the semi-finals. As this was only the fifth time he competed at this event, Tisdall says: "I said to myself, 'Well, you've run in the semi-finals and equalled the Olympic record; Bob, you're really getting the hang of this!"
Then in the final, despite stumbling at the final hurdle, he won the Olympic gold medal in 51.7 seconds which would have been a world record but for the fact that he had knocked over the last hurdle, and under the laws prevailing at the time, this ruled out recognition of a world record. It is worth noting that four Olympic hurdles champions appeared in that one race.
"At that moment I experienced a strange feeling of loneliness--everything was strangely quiet--I began to wonder if the rest of the field had fallen over" - Bob Tisdall, approaching the final hurdle of the 1932 Olympic Games 400 m hurdles final, five meters ahead of the field.
After his victory, Tisdall was invited to a dinner in Los Angeles where he was seated next to Amelia Earhart on one side and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. on the other.
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