After completing his education, Tommy Hayden found employment at Odlums Flour Mill, where, in 1946, his coworkers recruited him to join the Hercules Amateur Wrestling and Weightlifting Club. He took to the latter sport quickly and founded the Irish Amateur Weightlifting Association in 1948, the same year in which he won his first national senior championship in the lightweight category. He held this title through 1960, when he was selected to represent Ireland at the 1960 Rome Olympics. There, he finished 22nd in a field of 33 competitors in the lightweight division. His final international tournaments came in 1966, when he took part in both the Worlds and the Europeans, after which he retired and took up coaching and international refereeing.
Ireland