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Martin
Sheridan
The
predominance of the athletes from the USA in the track and
field events was further confirmed during the fourth Olympic
Games. Naturally, this predominance was  not
coincidental, nor was it limited to the talent of the American
athletes. Besides, athletes from the USA, such as John Flanagan,
Ray Ewry and Archie Hahn, had been the leading figures in
their events over two and three consecutive Olympic Games.
The duration of the athletic career of those athletes and
their leading presence in the major sports organizations demonstrate
that in the USA sport was the object of systematic practice
and an activity that lent prestige, fame and social recognition.
The educational system and mainly the universities - university
associations and championships (at school level, university
level etc.) - had been the nuclei of systematic involvement
in sport, namely the development of sports techniques, the
development of training methods and the establishment of stable
sports institutions. In the army and security forces sport
had received similar treatment, something which is obvious
by the many "uniformed" Olympic winners, especially in the
first Olympic Games.
Martin Sheridan was Irish. He was born on 28 March 1881 in
Bohola, Ireland, in Mayo county. In 1897, at the age of 16,
he immigrated with his family to the USA, following the large
immigration movement of the Irish to this country. Soon, he
became a police officer, like many other Irish, in New York.
It was then that began his involvement in sport. It is not
a coincidence that in the New York Police Department worked
another Olympic winner of Irish descent, Flanagan.
Sheridan has been one of the most illustrious athletes of
his time. The recognition of his athletic value, both in the
discus that was the event in which he had excelled and in
many more track and field events, is also obvious through
the fact that he was the carrier of the flag of the USA delegation
during the opening ceremony of the fourth Olympic Games. It
was the first time in the history of the Olympics that the
athletes paraded by national delegation as part of the opening
ceremony of the Games.
For Sheridan it was the last time that he participated in
the Olympic Games and that participation gave him two gold
medals and a bronze one. Up to that moment he had participated
in the 1904 Saint Louis Olympics, as well as in the so-called
Interim Olympic Games, which was held at Athens in 1906. In
1904 he was the winner in the discus. In 1906 he won in the
discus and the shot put, and came second in the stone throw
and the standing long jump, behind Ewry. On the whole, in
these organizations he won nine medals, five of which were
gold, three were silver and one was bronze. During his athletic
career he had gained 12 victories in the USA championship.
He died of pneumonia at the age of 37, on 27 March 1918.
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