McAdorey’s fellow former Northern Ireland athletes Paul McKee and Eddie King were among those to pay tribute to the Ballymena man.
“I often shared a room with John on internationals and we had a great laugh,” said 2003 world indoor 400m bronze medallist McKee.
“His popularity was evident at Sean Kyle’s funeral in 2015 when a long list of Irish internationals who hadn’t seen John for quite a while flocked over to him to say hello.
“One really nice moment the stands out happened on our way to the Olympic Stadium in Sydney.
“We could see Julian Golding, who was Commonwealth 200m gold medallist at the time. He stopped him and said: ‘Are you John McAdorey? So pleased to meet you, you were one of my inspirations growing up’. We were both shocked, and John was so happy.”
King, a fellow Ballymena native, recalled tough cross country training sessions alongside McAdorey during their teenage days.
“He used to kick my ass and the other middle distance runners in the 600m reps,” said the former Great Britain international.
“He was an incredible talent. Sean [Kyle] always thought he could have run a fast 400m but he stuck with the shorter events.”
