Inside Track: Dundalk's Olympic hopefuls can take inspiration from Peter McArdle’s heroics

Amy Broadhurst wrote after her recent failure to secure a place on the Ireland team for next year’s Olympics in Paris:

“Heartbroken isn’t the word. I always thought my destiny was the Olympic Games.

“I believed I was born for boxing, I was to be an Olympic champion, and that’s not the way it’s gone for me.

“I don’t know what’s next. I don’t know if I’ll ever strap an amateur glove around my hand again, or if I’ll go pro.”

The Dundalk fighter was surprisingly beaten in the final of the Irish Championships at the beginning of this year, but was expected to bounce back in the European Olympic qualifier in Poland in June.

Needing to only earn a place in the last four, she went out at the quarter-final stage.

That, however, didn’t end her chances of making the trip to Paris.

Coming up later this year are Irish Elite Championships.

If the winner of the World, European and Commonwealth 2022 titles was to succeed here, she’d be on the Irish team for the first World qualifier in the spring of next year, with another chance of realising her long-held ambition.

However, clearly distressed over her failure in Poland, she questioned where her future lay, giving serious thought to joining her friend and sparring partner, one of Ireland’s greatest ever boxers Katie Taylor, in the paid ranks.

Having taken time to reflect – and maybe seek advice from others – one of the town’s finest sport stars is reported to be back on the Olympic trail.

She’s now boxing at 66kg, having been at 60kg when bringing up last year’s magnificent treble.

She won’t lack for determination in her bid.

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Another local with Olympic aspirations is sprinter Israel Olatunde.

Recording the fastest ever time for an Irishman, the UCD student – who got his earlier education at St Mary’s College – covered the 60m in 6.57 at the National Indoor Championships in February of this year.

This was four-hundreths of a second better than the time Paul Hession recorded back in 2007.

If repeating a similar feat outdoors and staying free of injury, Olatunde could be in a green blazer come next summer.

This county hasn’t a long list of Olympians, but among those on it are medal-winner and a great long distance runner.

Drogheda’s Tony ‘Socks’ Byrne boxed his way to a Bronze at the 1956 Melbourne Games, and then later in his career got the better of one of the finest amateurs, Scotland’s Dick McTaggart, in an Ireland v England International at London’s Albert Hall.

It was a memorable win, one to match his Melbourne achievement.

Noel Carroll ran a two Games, in Tokyo (1964) and Mexico (’68), competing in the 400 metres the 800 metres.

No joy there, but at other times in a distinguished career, broke several World and European records, and was a winner on the boards as well as the track.

The Annagassan native was largely responsible for the Dublin City Marathon finding a way onto the calendar, and it’s a tribute to him and others that this event is, after 43 years, is strong and popular as ever.

Peter McArdle, from Blackrock, did his training on the local flapper (unlicensed greyhound) track, which was located on Sandy Lane.

His hours spent there stood to him fine stead, because, before emigrating to America in 1956, he won 12 Irish titles, from a mile to 8,000m, and often broke records.

He was a regular at the then-famous AET Sports, held annually at The Grove football Grounds in Castlebellingham, and it wasn’t unusual to see him lap runner after runner, some of them twice and more, on his way to victory.

Because his club, Fort Creag (of which he was founder and only member, after he had parted company with Dundealgan) was affiliated to the NACA – an association which wasn’t recognised by the IOC – he couldn’t compete at the Olympics.

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The same applied to another Dundealgan member, champion sprinter Gerry McShane. Both had the qualifications better than some of those who competed.

McArdle had many offers to join Olympic-affiliated AAU clubs, but chose to stay loyal to the NACA. This was a decision which undoubtedly cost him a place on the Ireland team for the Melbourne and Rome Games, in ’56 and four years later.

He would, however, get his chance to test his skills against the world’s best.

This came in 1964, when, running for New York AC, he was chosen on the US team for the 1964 Tokyo Games.

This was after he had won the 1962 US cross-country championship, and, the following year, the Gold in the 10,000 metres and the Bronze in the Marathon, at the Pan-American Games in Sao Paulo.

But for chronic back pain he might have been there or thereabouts in the Tokyo marathon. Instead, he had to settle for 23rd in a 74-runner field, the race won by the great Ethiopian runner, Abebe Bikila.

On his selection for Tokyo, McArdle – who died in 1985 at the age of 56 (a year younger than Noel Carroll, in 1989) after a run in his adopted city’s Central Park – said: “It’s been a long, hard road, bit I finally made it.

“Because I am a man of principle, I was never considered for Irish team selections, so I now represent my adopted country, since I cannot represent my own.”

Lots in this story to inspire Amy and Israel as they go about trying to live the Olympic Dream.