Posted: October 28, 2004

Athletics: Treacy Named Honorary Chairman Of Manchester Road Race

From David Monti

(c) 2004 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

(MANCHESTER, Conn.)---John Treacy, an Olympic silver medalist and Irish sports legend, has been named Honorary Chairman of the 68th Manchester Road Race.

Treacy, 47, won the annual Thanksgiving Day race here in 1978, 1979, 1984 and 1985. He was an All-American track and cross country runner at Providence College, and a two-time World Cross Country Champion.

He became a national sports hero in Ireland when he finished second in the marathon at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. That was the first time that Treacy, a world-class performer in the 5000-meter and 10,000-meter events, had ever run a marathon.

Treacy won the Los Angeles Marathon in 1992 and the Dublin Marathon in 1994. In 1991, he finished second in the Tokyo Marathon and third in the Boston Marathon.

“John is the ‘Michael Jordan’ of running in Ireland,” said Dave Prindiville, Manchester Road Race Committee President. “He has played an extraordinary role in the history of this race, and we are thrilled to have him back with us this year as Honorary Chairman.”

Treacy is now the Chief Executive of the Irish Sports Council. He lives in Villierstown, Ireland, a village in County Waterford, with his wife, Fionnula, and four children.

The four-time champion will attend this year’s race, which starts at 10 a.m. Thanksgiving Day in front of St. James Church on Main Street. He is also expected to attend several other road race events which are scheduled in Manchester during the week prior to the race.

Treacy’s appearance comes on the 25th anniversary of his second---and perhaps most memorable---Manchester Road Race victory.

On November 22, 1979, Treacy beat a field of 3,600 runners in what was then the course record time of 21:26. He shaved nearly a minute off the prior mark of 22:21.9 that was held by nine-time winner Amby Burfoot. (The current course record of 21:19 was set in 1995 by Phillimon Hanneck).

The runner-up in the 1979 race was Ray Treacy, John’s older brother. Ray Treacy is now the head track coach at Providence College.

John Treacy, who holds both bachelor’s and master’s of business administration degrees from Providence College, chaired a group which developed Ireland’s first national policy on sport in 1997. He has been Chief Executive of the Irish Sports Council since 1999, and has also served on several other national athletic boards and committees in Ireland.

Treacy was the first of a number of outstanding runners from Ireland who were dominant in the Manchester Road Race during the past 25 years. Other members of the “Irish Connection” have included Eamonn Coghlan (who won in 1981, 1982 and 1983), John Doherty ( the 1986 and 1987 champion) and Mark Carroll (the winner in 1998 and 2000).