John Lawlor played rugby and Gaelic football as a youth, but after joining the Garda Síochána in 1953 he took up hammer throwing, winning the 1955 Irish title while wearing the colors of the Civil Service AC. He continued to play rugby with the Irish Wolfhounds in 1956, but then accepted a track & field scholarship to Boston University in the USA, where he studied geology. While in the USA he won the NCAA Championship in the hammer in 1959 and 1960. At the AAU Meet he placed third in 1957-58 and 1960 and second in 1959. After the Rome Olympics Lawlor returned to County Tipperary in 1963, where he became a geologist at Silvermines. He won three Irish AAU hammer titles (1955, 1965-66), three All-Ireland hammer titles (1956, 1965-66), and the 1961 British AAA championship. He would eventually return to Boston University to get his Ph.D. in geology in 1970 and settled in Milton, Massachusetts, near Boston. Three of his five children would follow him into the field of geology.
Personal Best: HT – 65.18 (1960).
Ireland