In any case, he led the race for only a few seconds before Ethiopia's Miruts Yifter kicked past him on the inside. By contrast, in the 1983 World Championships in Athletics 5,000 metres, Coghlan was in peak shape and ran intelligently, catching the Soviet Union's Dmitry Dmitriyev on the last back straight and sprinting past him with about 120 metres to go. He ran the last 1,000 metres very fast, in 2:24.77, and won the race by 1.67 seconds, despite clearly slowing down in the final metres. He also won silver at the 1978 European Championships in Prague over 1500m, in 3:36.57, behind Steve Ovett of Great Britain, and in 1979, he competed in his only European Indoor Championships (he raced sparingly on the European indoor circuit due to his indoor commitments in the US), taking the gold medal in the 1500 m in Vienna. In December 1979 he ran the only sub 50-minute time in the Waterhouse Byrne Baird Shield 10 Mile Cross Country. In 1981, Eamonn won the Gold medal at 5000m in the IAAF World Cup, competing for Europe (not shown in the medal table above). He missed out on the 1982 European Championships and the 1984 Olympic Games due to injury. Coghlan was eliminated in the 5000-metre semi-finals at the 1988 Seoul Olympics In 1985, he was a member of Ireland's four-man squad along with Marcus O'Sullivan, Frank O'Mara and Ray Flynn, which set a world record time of 15:49.08 in the 4 x mile relay, in a charity fund-raising race in Dublin.