Phil Conway competed in the men’s shot put at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, managing a best throw of 16.69m.

He went on to become one of the most significant figures in the history of Irish athletics as a coach, developing the hammer-throwing programme at Rockwell College that produced generations of Irish internationals.

From Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, a former clerical officer with Irish Lighthouses who often ended up ‘digging the shot out of the mud’ when he trained in Ireland, Conway earned an athletics scholarship to Boston University in 1966.

As a student at Rockwell College in 1963 he had broken the 50-foot barrier for the shot at the GAA grounds in Clonmel at the East Munster Sports, where Dr Pat O’Callaghan – the double Olympic hammer champion – witnessed the effort and told him to ‘keep at it.’

He graduated in physical education from Boston University and returned to teach at Rockwell College in 1970, where he later established one of the finest athletics coaching programmes in Ireland.