Sean Cahill competed in the men’s 110 metres hurdles at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, finishing 7th in his heat in 14.28 seconds – a performance made all the more remarkable by the circumstances in which it was achieved.

A few weeks before the Games he tore his Achilles tendon. With the assistance of steroid treatment permitted by the authorities to aid the healing process, he made it to the starting line. It was an act of considerable resilience from an athlete who, at his peak, had reached the semi-finals of the 110 metres hurdles at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart – achieving a personal best of 13.55 seconds in the quarter-final – and had ranked as high as 29th in the world.

He wore the Irish vest at European Championships and World Championships during a career that established him as one of the leading Irish sprint hurdlers of his generation.

His greater legacy, however, came through coaching. Working alongside his wife Terrie – herself a former Irish international long jumper – he became the most important figure in the career of Derval O’Rourke, one of Ireland’s greatest ever track and field athletes. O’Rourke cold-called him at his home in Meath in November 2005 after he had briefly but memorably appraised her technique – telling her bluntly that it was terrible but that if she improved it she could be very good.

He only intended giving her one hour. Instead, Sean and Terrie Cahill coached O’Rourke for the next nine years, during which she won the World Indoor 60 metres hurdles title in Moscow in 2006, two European Championship silvers, two European Indoor bronzes, and finished 4th at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin.

On her retirement in 2014 O’Rourke described Sean and Terrie as ‘the rock that my success has been built on.’