The 2015 GloHealth National Athletics Awards were held at the Plaza Hotel in Santry today. Among the award recipient was Cork City Sports Meet Director Dick Hodgins who received the Lifetime service to Athletics Award.

Milers of the calibre of John Walker, Steve Scott, Eamonn Coughlan and local hero Marcus O’Sullivan and Sonia O’Sullivan have graced the track at the Mardyke, the hammer competition of 1984 when Yuriy Sedykh set a world record of 86.34m to edge out Sergey Litvinov’s 85.20m. Indeed there were over 10 throws over 80m during the extraordinary competition. 

Of course non of that would have been possible only for the dedicated work of a special group of people on the committee who have brought international athletics to the Irish public regardless of cost and one member of the committee in particular has made an immense contribution to athletics in Cork, both as an athlete and administrator. 

As a runner he won fourteen Irish titles over a wide range of distances over twelve years. Twice winning the national 1500m, twice winning the mile, three times champion over 2 miles, once over 10 miles, three times 15 mile champion and a marathon title in 1975 to round it off. 

After that came the administrative side of things with a long spell as Leevale AC  treasurer, before joining the Cork City Sports Committee. It was not long before he found himself in the position of chairman, a role he undertook with great passion and expertise for 19 years. 

For the past few years he has been meet director and continues to devote a huge amount of time to ensuring Cork City Sports remains the prime fixture (that it is) on the Irish & European calendar. For so many years it has not just brought World Class Performers to the country but it also provided opportunity for Irish athletes to compete internationally on home soil. Many qualifying standards for major championships have been achieved at the sports. The sports continues to thrive at it’s new venue at the Cork IT Arena. 

And so Athletics Ireland was delighted to honour the Cork City Sports Committee and in particular one of it’s longest serving members who is the Lifetime Achievement Award recipient for 2015, Dick Hodgins.

Unfortunately Dick is recovering from an illness and was unable to attend in person, his daughters Jill & Carol and his son Rickey accepted the award on his behalf.