Clean sweep for Ray Flynn managed athletes in Olympic final
The form book was ripped up by Cole Hocker’s gold medal
It was a clean sweep for a Longford man in Tuesday’s 1500m Men’s race in the Paris Olympics.
Former star athlete and Longford town native Ray Flynn saw three of his clients take home the medals in the elite final.
A former Olympian himself (In 1980 and 1984), Flynn has ru
n the successful Flynn Sports Management agency in the US since 1989.
He has had many successful athletes on his books, most notably former 100m Olympic champion Donovan Bailey (Atlanta 1996).
However, the former St. Mel’s College student will surely treasure this final as much as any of his successes. The form book was ripped up by Cole Hocker’s gold medal. The favourite for the race was defending Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen (Norway).
All eyes were on the anticipated battle between him and Josh Kerr (Great Britain), who had developed a rivalry in recent years.
However, Hocker found his way past both of them on the inside to register an Olympic record time of three minutes 27.65 seconds.
Kerr finished second, an improvement upon his bronze medal at the Tokyo games.
In third was another athlete on Flynn’s books, Yared Nuguse (USA).
Ingebrigtsen finished fourth.
World Athletic President and former Olympic star Seb Coe said before the race that the rivalry between Igebrigtsen and Kerr could produce a “race for the ages.”
However, the Ray Flynn managed athletes ripped up that script.
Flynn, who lives in Tennessee (he gained a scholarship to a university there in 1974) has one Irish athlete on his books, long distance runner Fionnula McCormack.