The silver secret -John Treacy won an Olympic medal in his first ever marathon at Los Angeles 1984

Have you heard the one about the Irishman who won an Olympic silver medal in his first ever marathon?

40 years ago this August, John Treacy did just that, stunning the athletics world at the Los Angeles Games.

The Waterford man was best known as a cross-country, 5,000 and 10,000-metre runner, and had put in 20k of hard running to finish ninth in the latter event six days previously.

Entering an event the 27-year-old had never competed in, it might have seemed like an afterthought or insurance policy. But, secretly, it was the target all along.

Having moved back to his college town of Providence, Rhode Island the previous autumn in a bid to reignite his running career, Treacy resumed training with his former college coach Bob Amato's group and was introduced to Argentinian cardiologist and marathon runner Dr Dario Herrera.

"In Providence, at that particular time, we had a bunch of guys all training very well," Treacy tells Greg Allen on Chapters of Magnificence, a new RTÉ Radio 1 series profiling 11 of Ireland's living Olympic medallists.

"Around that time, we were doing our VO2 max and efficiency and Dr Hererra said to me 'Listen, everything is pointing to this marathon'.

"I said: ‘I don't want to do the marathon. I want to go back, I have unfinished business in 10,000 metres.' So it took a bit of persuasion to get to the marathon.

"The other thing that was weighing on my mind was ‘Los Angeles… marathon… heat… how could I cope with that?

"In fairness, Dario did a lot of research in terms of heat acclimatisation and really got his homework done in terms of what I needed to do.

"As it happened, during the month of June, Providence was roasting hot, so I was training in really hot weather. The preparation was excellent."

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