Fanahan McSweeney of Castletownroche, Co. Cork became the first Irishman to accept an athletics scholarship to a US college outside of the north-east when he enrolled at McNeese State College in Louisiana in 1970 – attracted by the warm weather and the supposedly star-studded coaching staff.

He discovered on arrival that the Bob Hayes on the college’s staff was a field events coach, not the 1968 Olympic 100m champion, but stayed on regardless. He competed in the men’s 400 metres at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, finishing 5th in his heat and missing a qualifying place by just 0.04 of a second – running only with the assistance of cortisone and pain-killing injections for a chronic hip injury that had plagued his career since his hurling days.

In February 1970, in just his second year of serious athletics, he had finished second to Fred Newhouse in the final of the USA indoor 400m at the Houston Astrodome in a time of 46.3 seconds (run without starting blocks) – inside Tommie Smith’s old world record and a new European record for the 400m and 440 yards.

His Munich coach had pushed him through a winter of cross-country training that caused rapid deterioration of the injury. He received his Olympic selection confirmation only the Saturday before the OCI’s reconsideration meeting when he reached the qualifying standard in an international against Scotland.