Irish athletics has been left shocked and saddened by the news that Ciarán Ó Lionáird, the former Irish 1,500 metres champion and London 2012 Olympian, has died suddenly at the age of 38.Ó Lionáird was found dead in Canada on Tuesday morning.The Cork native and Leevale club member, who had been based in the US since 2011, gained considerable popularity during his relatively short international career and the news of his sudden death was greeted with similar shock throughout the wider athletics world.In a running career frequently plagued by injury, Ó Lionáird’s conspicuous talent as a junior athlete was often thwarted, before he made his senior breakthrough in 2011, when in the one summer he improved his 1,500m best from 3:48.36 to 3:34.46. That time qualified him for the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, South Korea and the following year’s London Olympics. His laid-back and old-school approach to training and racing brought him many admirers, and he became affectionately known as “Mad Len”. Ó Lionáird was also outspoken on matters on and off the track, including the difficulties most elite athletes face trying to make a living from the sport, and later the challenges they face when entering retirement. Ireland's Ciarán Ó Lionáird before the Men's 1,500m final at the 2014 European Athletics Championships in Zurich in August 2014. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho Despite his inexperience, Ó Lionáird made the final in Daegu in 2011, where he finished in 10th position. Two months later he moved to the Nike Oregon Project, based in Portland, Oregon, to train under the controversial coach Alberto Salazar. Although that was short-lived, he soon switched to the Nike Track Club Elite, a sort of alternative training camp in Eugene, Oregon, to train under Britain’s Mark Rowland.By the time of the London Olympics, however, Ó Lionáird’s injuries were taking a physical and mental toll, particularly the reoccurrence of an Achilles tendon strain. “This has been the worst experience of my life, there’s no positives I can take from this,” he said on RTÉ after finishing 13th in his 1,500m heat in London. “I’m going to find something else to do with my life.”He bounced back in March 2013, however, going to the European Indoor Championships in Gothenburg and winning the bronze medal in the 3,000m, having boldly struck for gold on the last lap. He then missed that entire summer with injury.[ Ó Lionáird shows mettle to forge bronzeOpens in new window ]There was another comeback in 2014, when he won the Irish 1,500m title in Santry in July. He then made the final of the European Championships in Zurich, but he was clipped and injured in that race and unable to finish.After another mostly crippling 2015, Ó Lionáird announced his retirement before the Rio Olympics in 2016, at age 28, convinced his running career was done. Later still, he did speak of another possible comeback for the delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021 after he resumed training during the lockdown in Flagstaff, Arizona. Nothing came of that.During this period he worked as a shoe adviser for Nike, later becoming involved in the music and entertainment scene in Los Angeles. He had been based in Topanga in California in recent months. Growing up in the countryside of Toonsbridge, outside Macroom, he joined the West Muskerry Athletic Club at the age of seven. He later he moved to Leevale, in the city, where gradually his potential began to shine.He ran 3:50.10 at age 16, and in 2005 won a 1,500m bronze medal at the European Youth Olympics, in Lignano, Italy. Inevitably that drew the interest of several US colleges, Ó Lionáird initially attending Michigan University, before transferring to Florida State University for his final year, in 2009.Though his international career was short, it unquestionably burned brightly, as all of Irish athletics appreciated.