Obituary

Kevin O'Flanagan
12:01AM BST 16 Jun 2006
Kevin O'Flanagan, who has died aged 86, was one of Ireland's most revered sportsmen, having represented his country at both soccer and rugby, as well as being a champion athlete; he subsequently had a distinguished career in medicine and international sports administration.

In the years immediately before and after the Second World War, O'Flanagan was the best known sporting figure in Eire. He first came to notice in 1937 when, aged 18, he was selected at inside-left for Ireland in a World Cup qualifying match against Norway, and scored on his debut.

Soon afterwards he went up as a medical student to University College, Dublin, where he forged a reputation as the fastest sprinter in the land. He won the 60 yards, 100 yards and long jump titles at the Irish national athletics championships, and had there been an Olympic Games in 1940 he would certainly have competed. As it was, he had to be content with gaining a reputation for modesty and sportsmanship. When, in 1941, he tied for the Irish long jump title with David Guiney, he told the other man to take the only medal that had been cast, saying that he already had one from previous championships.

O'Flanagan had not played rugby in his schooldays, but having taken it up at university was selected on the wing in an unofficial international against France in 1946. The following year he won his cap against the touring Australians at Lansdowne Road, becoming the first Irishman, and one of only two, to have played both rugby and soccer for his country. The other was his brother Michael, who turned out against Scotland later in the year. The two O'Flanagans played in the same Irish soccer team against England in 1948.

By then Kevin O'Flanagan had moved to London, where he studied at the Clinic for Injuries and began to build up a practice specialising in sports medicine. In the 1945-46 season he played as an amateur for Arsenal, scoring 18 goals from the wing. In later years he liked to recall how he had startled the team's trainer, Tom Whittaker, by telling him, when asked how much he wanted to be paid, that he needed only his bus fare, so as not to endanger his amateur status in the other code of football. The feats of the "flying doctor" generated much copy for Fleet Street's sports pages.

Kevin O'Flanagan was born in Dublin on June 10 1919. He was educated by the Christian Brothers, and as a teenager played football for Bohemians. Although he was forced to concentrate on his studies after a single season with Arsenal, he did play in 1949-50 for Brentford, and turned out for London Irish rugby club as well.

In 1948 O'Flanagan was one of the doctors attached to the British Olympic team, and, once resettled in Dublin, where he established a successful practice in Upper Fitzwilliam Street, he built a parallel career in Ireland's Olympic Council, of which he became vice-president. From 1960 until 1976 he was chief medical officer to the Irish Olympic squad, and travelled to all the Games. In 1976 he was elected a member of the International Olympic Committee itself - only the third Irishman to achieve such a position - and after he retired in 1995 he remained an honorary member of the IOC. He also sat on its medical commission for many years. O'Flanagan was president of the Irish Sports Medicine Association, chairman of the National Rehabilitation Board, and in 1969 presided over the World Congress for Rehabilitation when it met in Dublin. For six years he was also Ireland's representative on the sports medicine committee of the Council of Europe.

In his spare time O'Flanagan enjoyed golf and tennis, both of which he played to a formidable standard. He died in Dublin on May 26. He was unmarried.