Joe Flaherty

Sad to hear that Maeve Kyle, Ireland’s first female Olympian in track and field, has passed away. She was a friend. My favourite Maeve story was track side in Florence in 1981 when I handed her my Casio watch and asked her if she could call my lap time out to me as the Italians were in fine voice that night and I knew I wouldn’t be able to properly hear or understand the Italian race caller. Off I went and as I got to the end of the first lap I snuck a look at Maeve who was just staring at my watch, not a sound came from her. When I finished the race I went to collect my watch and said I didn’t hear you. She looked sheepishly at me and said “I didn’t call out your lap time”. I asked why not and she said “I was staring at your watch and couldn’t believe how fast you had gone through. I thought something had happened to the watch and didn’t want to call a wrong time and mess up your race. So I thought I would say nothing and, if the watch was right, you would just keep going at that pace”. Which, or course I did running under 1.42 for the first time and setting the 800m World Record which stood for 16 years. Thank you for a flood of great memories my friend