Ronnie Delany could have been excused a wry smile as Ireland's Olympic competitors and a small army of officials prepared to set out on the first leg of their great Australian adventure a couple of weeks ago.

Wall to wall excitement reflected the importance of it all at a pre-departure reception and, as television cameras whirred, we wondered aloud if a better-prepared squad has ever left these shores for the great showpiece of international sport.

It was a lot different on the last occasion an Irish Olympic team set out for Australia. Far from being wined and dined, those selected for the 1956 Games at Melbourne were expected to fund at least some, if not all, of their travel expenses.

And when chef de mission Christy Murphy was hospitalised within days of arriving in Australia, the two Irish journalists covering the Games, the late Arthur McWeeney and Joe Walsh, occasionally had to take on different roles to meet the basic needs of a team without a manager.

Delany remembers: "Even by the standards of the day, it was all a bit frugal, so frugal in fact that, when our heavyweight boxer Pa Sharkey was beaten in the first round he had to leave the camp because there was no money to pay his keep.

"In all, there were just 12 of us, 11 men and Maeve Kyle. There were no managers, coaches, doctors or masseurs. And when Christy Murphy fell ill, there was, effectively, nobody in charge at that point.

Eventually, the gap was filled by the team's attache, John Mulrooney, a local who was formerly Secretary of the Australian High Commissioner's office in Dublin.

One of his first duties was to recruit Snowy Sullivan, a local coach, to look after the boxers, but the rest had to fend for themselves.

But even the new, improvised arrangement had its problems. Mulrooney had no transport of his own and the cash-strapped Irish squad didn't have the funds to provide it for him.

Later, Lord Killanin, the President of the Olympic Council of Ireland, would note in his official report: "John Mulrooney's job was made all the more difficult because he hadn't any transport. The absence of a car which was provided for other chefs de mission aggravated his problems and caused him expense."

The arrangements to transport the team to Melbourne were a bit special too. The Irish-based members travelled from Dublin to New York, then a marathon in itself, and then, after a brief rest, on to San Francisco.

It was there that the specialist pre-Olympic training was done. And then it was on to Melbourne via Honolulu, Canton, Fiji and Sydney. "The journey was an adventure in itself, for everywhere we stopped it seemed there were Irish missionaries waiting to meet us," recalls Delany.

"Just to make sure that everybody knew we'd arrived, we flew this huge tricolour over our quarters when we got to the Olympic village only to be told the next morning to take it down. But, at 21, I was too young to be upset by things like that."

Incredibly, the man who was poised to write the most captivating story in Irish sport in the 20th century, almost never made it to Melbourne. On June 1st, 1956 he had become only the seventh man in history, and the youngest to that point, to run a sub four-minute mile, at the famous Compton Relays meeting.

But when he came back to Dublin, later in the summer, he was twice beaten by Britain's Brian Hewson at Lansdowne Road. And the Olympic Council of Ireland was not impressed. Then, as now, relations between the OCI and the governing body for athletics, the AAU, were fraught and, with no track and field representatives on the Council, the future champion didn't have a lot of friends to back his case.

They chose to ignore or were blissfully unaware of the fact that, shortly after his return from Villanova University, he was badly spiked in an 800 metres race in Paris and was talked into running in Dublin only by the persuasive tongue of Billy Morton. But Killanin was steadfast in his support of the young athlete and, on a split vote, he was selected.

"Oddly enough, it never occurred to me that I wouldn't be selected. I knew I was going to the Olympics and, deep down, I knew I was going to win the 1,500 metres at the Olympics.

"Don't forget I was a product of the American system at Villanova, an athlete who was taught to think only in terms of winning. Jumbo Elliott, my coach, had these stickers on the wall of the gym like `Win or Bust' or `Who Remembers The Guy Who Was Second'.

"He imbued in me an incredible drive to succeed and, after some very good training sessions at Villanova, I knew I was in shape to go after it.

"It was the same when I got to California for the pre-Olympic training. There I was lucky enough to have the assistance of Brutus Hamilton, a very good coach who had turned out some fine athletes.

"I recall in particular the very last session I had with him in Berkeley. We were just about to pack up when he walked halfway down the finish-straight, took a piece of twine out of his pocket and strung it across the track. Then, he invited me to run through it, spreading my arms wide in mock jubilation.

"`Now I think we have practised everything. Just go and do it when you get to Melbourne,' was his parting message."

Despite his tender years, the 1,500-metres champion designate knew how to look after himself when he arrived there. "I'd always been fastidious in my preparations for races, to the point where I went over every little detail.

"And one of the first things I did when I got to Melbourne was to check out the time it would take to get from the village to the Stadium. Once there, I had a trial run on the track, familiarised myself with things like the positioning of the start and finish of the 1,500 metres, the location of the dressingrooms, so that I had a complete mental picture of the stadium before I ever got to race in it.

"Other things which team managers normally do, like picking up your race-number, finding out the draw, checking on the form of other athletes in the race, were no problem. But, when it came to putting the number on my team vest, I hit trouble. I wasn't particularly good with a needle and thread, but, eventually, Maeve Kyle came to my rescue."

With Jumbo Elliott back in America, Delany had to devise his own race tactics in Australia. Running in the second of two heats, he decided to conserve energy and duly qualified by finishing third behind Mervyn Lincoln of Australia and the Englishman Ken Wood.

For the final on Saturday, December 1st, precisely six months after dipping under the intimidating four-minute barrier for the first time, the plan wouldn't be an awful lot different in the early stages.

Joining him on the start-line were two Australians, Lincoln and John Landy, two New Zealanders, Murray Halberg and Neville Scott, three Britons, Wood, Ian Boyd and Brian Hewson in addition to Gunnar Nielsen (Denmark), Laszlo Tabori (Hungary) and Stanislav Jungwirth (Czechoslovakia).

"There were a lot of people in there who felt they could win - and I was one of them," he recalls. "But to succeed, I knew I had to remember the three favourite words in Jumbo's vocabulary: `Relax, relax, relax'.

"I told myself: `Never drop more than 10 metres off the leader. No more than six at the bell and, no matter what happens, stay calm.' As it happened, things went perfectly on the day.

"Thanks to all that hard training I was only floating for the first three laps and, even though I was close to the back of the field at the bell, I was confident.

"I had run so economically that I was certain I had more left in the tank than the others and, when I looked into the faces of Brian Hewson and John Landy, I felt even better. They were racing hard - and it showed.

"The other priority was to be in the right position to make a decisive move. One by one, I picked off the runners in front of me. And, when I swept past Hewson to take the lead at the entrance to the finish straight, I sensed that nobody could catch me.

"But there was still 90 metres to run and I couldn't be absolutely certain that the race was mine until about five metres out. Then it was just bliss and I could go through the routine I had practised with Brutus Hamilton just a couple of weeks earlier.

"The rest, however, was unrehearsed. I pulled over to the side of track, fell to my knees and said a silent prayer. To me, that was a natural reaction. Like a lot of other sportsmen in different sports at difficult times, I prayed. And I also gave thanks."

For many, in those pre-television days, the news that an Irishman had scaled the summit in a golden era for miling didn't break until the eight o'clock Radio Eireann bulletin the following morning. And then, in a questionable editorial judgement, the editor on duty in Henry Street made it only the second lead of the bulletin.

Nobody remembers the first story, but none of us will ever forget the second. In measured stentorian tones, we were informed that "Ronnie Delany has won the Olympic 1,500-metres championship for Ireland in Melbourne."

Never has there been a more pleasant wake-up call on a Saturday morning. And the thrill of a conquest against the odds would endure for at least another 44 years.