Education
Treacy attended Street Anne"s Post-Primary School in Cappoquin, Company Waterford, running 12 km to school every morning. He graduated from Providence College in the United States.
long-distance runner marathon runner
Treacy attended Street Anne"s Post-Primary School in Cappoquin, Company Waterford, running 12 km to school every morning. He graduated from Providence College in the United States.
He represented Ireland at four Olympic Games between 1980 and 1992. His nickname was "The Mudlark," due to his winning consecutive world cross−country championships in muddy conditions. Treacy was known as a tenacious runner who did not have an especially sharp final kick in track races.
In the 1978 European Athletics Championships in Prague, he placed 11th in the fast 10,000-metre race and fourth in the slow and tactical 5,000-metre race, losing to Italy"s Venanzio Ortis by just three tenths of a second.
In the 5,000-metre final, he lingered behind Great Britain"s Nick Rose on the final back straight just after Rose had dropped from the lead group. In the 1980 Moscow Olympics, Treacy collapsed in his 10,000-metre heat with only 200 metres left, a victim of heat paralysis and dehydration.
Having recovered from his heat-induced collapse, Treacy placed seventh in the 5,000-metre final of those Olympics. In the 1983 World Athletics Championships in Helsinki, Finland, Treacy was eliminated in the 10,000-metre heats.
In the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, he placed ninth in the 10,000-metre final before crowning his athletics career with a silver medal in the men"s marathon.
Treacy continued to work his way up the rankings until entering the Los Angeles Coliseum stadium just behind second-placed British athlete Charlie Spedding. After the Los Angeles Olympics, Treacy ran competitively until 1995, retiring following a road race held in his honour in Waterford, attended by the other two medalists from the 1984 Olympic marathon, Carlos Lopes and Charlie Spedding. At the 1986 European Athletics Championships in Stuttgart, he placed sixth in the 10,000-metre race.
In the 1987 World Athletics Championships in Rome, he placed twenty-sixth in the 10,000-metre race and thirteenth in the 5,000-metre final.
He failed to finish the marathon at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and placed 51st in his final Olympic games in Barcelona in 1992. Treacy is currently chief executive of the Irish Sports Council.