92 years of dedication: Remembering Pat Naughton, the man who never stopped competing

Ever year since 1972, Tipperary native Pat Naughton won national masters medals. That included last August in the over-90 category. 

During the coivd-19 lockdown, Pat Naughton continued training while stuck at home. Pic: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

There are many lessons you could take from Pat Naughton, who was laid to rest in his native Nenagh on Wednesday at the age of 92, but the biggest is that we don’t stop competing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop competing.

Last August, Naughton won three national masters titles in the over-90 category: running the 100m in 30.68 seconds, jumping 1.62m in the long jump and throwing 6.02m in the shot put. He had no rivals in his age category, Naughton lining up alongside competitors 20 or 30 years his junior. But he nonetheless gave it his all – right to the end.

Every year since 1972, Naughton won national masters medals: over half a century of consistent application, of loyalty to the sport and his talent and his health, refusing to hang up his spikes and embrace a more sedentary existence.

In his youth, he won three national titles in the decathlon before he gave up the sport at the age of 28, a retirement that lasted 10 years. In his masters career, he accrued north of 350 medals.

Five years ago, a few months into the first covid-19 lockdown, I spoke to Naughton over the phone, writing a piece about how he was continuing his training even while stuck inside the house. He was doing 15 minutes of training every morning and another five minutes every evening, doing exercises or darting along the hall. The accompanying photo of him, taken by Stephen McCarthy of Sportsfile, received a World Press Photo Award the following year.

Naughton was 87 at the time of our chat and when he picked up the phone, he’d just finished a 90-minute session of digging in his garden. Three days a week, he was still knocking out a 90-minute session of running, throwing and jumping at the indoor track down the road from him in Nenagh, which his brother, Seán – a longtime manager for the Irish senior team – was instrumental in building.

Each spring and summer, year after year, decade after decade, Naughton trained for the national masters like it was “an Olympic event” and he also won five medals at European level, competing internationally until the age of 82.

His son, Joe, was also a three-time national decathlon champion and when Pat suggested his days of going abroad might be behind him, Joe was quick to set him straight. “He said: Don’t ever have the word ‘never’ in your vocabulary,’” recalled Naughton.

His chief advice for the young generation of athletes was to avoid training on the road. “I think it’s not great for the limbs, you can’t beat the grass,” he said. “I think they’re burning out a lot of people in a lot of sports.” 

In his latter years, Naughton had to stop doing his beloved hurdles due to a hamstring issue, but he maintained astonishingly good health. Part of that was due to his fastidious routines, with Naughton doing mobility exercises before he got out of bed every morning.

In 2023, he starred in the RTÉ programme Super Agers, and while many might wonder if some magic supplement helped him stay active, Naughton told me his approach to nutrition was very simple: “I’m convinced if you have a sensible diet and if you eat things you like, you don’t have to (take) any multi-vitamins.” 

His approach was always about common sense: training enough but not too much, and doing it with remarkable consistency – learning where the limits were and then doing his very best to go beyond them.