Jamie Costin (Séamus Ó Coistín) competed in the men’s 50 kilometres race walk at two Olympic Games in a career shaped as much by extraordinary resilience as by athletic achievement.

From Ballycreen, An Rinn, in the Waterford Gaeltacht, Costin was a member of West Waterford Athletic Club and was coached by former Irish international race walker Pierce O’Callaghan. He had also qualified for the Athens 2004 Games and was one of Ireland’s leading medal contenders in the event, but ten days before his competition was due to begin he was hit by a lorry on the wrong side of a country road near Porto Heli in Greece. The impact shattered two vertebrae in his lower back and came within millimetres of damaging his spinal cord. He was airlifted home to Dublin by Lear Jet, and surgeons at the Mater Hospital were waiting to receive him.

Doubts were raised over whether he would ever compete again. Four years later he stood on the start line of the 50km walk at the Beijing Olympics – a demonstration of persistence that earned widespread admiration regardless of his finishing position. He set an Irish record of 3:50:51 at a race walk meet in Dudince, Slovakia in March 2009.

His family is a deeply sporting one – his brother Niall Costin competed in the 2003 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Dublin. Costin is married to Zuzanna Malikova, a Slovak Olympian.