Episode 31 - Gary O'Hanlon - Athletics

Sporting Spotlight

This week's guest on the show is one of Ireland's top marathon runners. Clonliffe Harrier's Gary O'Hanlon chats to Breifne Earley about disliking athletics until he started to win races at fourteen. The car accident that nearly ended his running career at seventeen and his return to competitive action almost fifteen years later, egged on my his Amphibian King colleague Kevin English, before winning a bronze medal in the Irish Cross Country Championships in 2012. Winning four marathons (Connemara, Limerick, Kildare and Newry) in eight weeks back to back before a second place in the Cork marathon in June saw him explode into the public consciousness through his continued exposure in all the athletics media at that time of the season. He brought his good form into the end of the season and it rubbed off on the plenty of athletes he coached through the Dublin City Marathon. It was a personal disaster for Gary despite finishing 6th in the race, an incident the previous day with his phone being stolen resulted in a broken hand for Gary, who ran the race regardless. And finally the less said the better about his effort in the Sporting Spotlight, although with the amount of training required to be that competitive over the marathon distance we'll forgive him.