Every athlete and team has their own different motivation. It often comes from that stage in every cycle of sporting dominance and around every aura of invincibility when the narrative suddenly turns from how they keep on winning to how on earth they just lost.
Think Katie Taylor at the Rio Olympics in 2016, or the Dublin football team in the 2021 championship and their subsequent motivation to set that narrative straight again.
Before the necessitated split partnership in their boat, Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy had not lost a regatta in four years, during which time they went unbeaten across Olympic, World and European level.
Their last defeat, incidentally, was at the World Cup regatta in Rotterdam in July 2019 — losing to Germany by 0.03 of a second — long before the world had even heard of Covid-19 and the first time O’Donovan had partnered in the lightweight double sculls with the then 22-year-old McCarthy (his brother Gary O’Donovan also won bronze in the lightweight single sculls, but wouldn’t regain his seat in the double).
Just over a month later at the 2019 world championships in Linz, Austria, O’Donovan and McCarthy won the gold medal, beating Italy into second, and the rest is Irish rowing history.
After most of the sporting world went into lockdown for 2020, O’Donovan and McCarthy remerged in 2021 to win European gold in Varese, Olympic gold in Tokyo, before another European and world championship gold in 2022 (not forgetting the Henley Regatta somewhere in between, O’Donovan jesting that meant even more than Tokyo).
Ever dominant and invincible, fast forward to Lucerne in July for the final World Cup regatta of 2023, their first time racing together this season after O’Donovan took time out to complete his medical degree at UCC. This time they had to settle for silver, by the narrowest of margins, edged out in a frantic sprint for the line by the French crew.
Given that lack of time in the boat together, the Skibbereen pair didn’t appear too bothered. Still, the French crew had unquestionably laid down a marker ahead of next summer’s Paris Olympics, their home games, with the partnership of Hugo Beurey and Ferdinand Ludwig winning by 0.09 of a second.
So to Belgrade, where over the next eight days, the 51st World Rowing Championships take place at the Ada Ciganlija regatta course, on Sava Lake, in the heart of the Serbian capital. Ask McCarthy if they’re out to set that narrative straight and he breaks into that innocently broad smile.
“I wouldn’t say it’s any extra motivation,” McCarthy says. “We only had a few weeks to prepare, and still had some good races out there. Obviously silver, but … I think overall it was quite a good result. Obviously, the field has come on a lot, but it’s nice to still be up there, and we’ve some good speed to gain. We only had two or three weeks (together) before, which in rowing is quite unusual. Most crews would be together a lot of the time, but we found a good way of working around it. Paul had his studies this year, his final year, so it was important to get all that done, and finished. So we trained apart for most of the year, whereas next year, we’ll spend a bit more time during the winter, preparing for Paris.”
In Lucerne, as is their style, O’Donovan and McCarthy pressed hard going into the last 500m, edging in front and perhaps easing up too soon, allowing the French to strike back.
Motivation perhaps for the French crew to prove it was no fluke. “Well, they’re quite good,” McCarthy says, “I think were sixth behind us at the last world championships, and had beaten the Swiss a few weeks before, in the second world cup. So we kind of knew they would be decent.
“I think they probably progressed through the rounds a bit more easily than us, so it wasn’t a surprise really. And on the line, you didn’t really know who had it, it was quite close like that. If we’d been on the other side, with the same margin, we’d have been delighted.
“But because it was so small, there are a lot of things we can adjust to bridge the gap. It’s really just about adding some finishing touches, and being able to win even on our worst days.”
What is certain is that Belgrade comes with extra motivation for all crews involved. It’s the first chance for Paris qualification, 114 spots across the 14 Olympic boat classes. The second chance comes at the European Qualifying Regatta in Hungary, next April 25th-26th, the last chance being the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta in Lucerne, on May 19th-21st.
With that in mind, Rowing Ireland high-performance director Antonio Maurogiovanni announced the selection of 12 crews, 28 rowers in all, 26 of them being in Olympic class events — the largest ever Irish selection for a world rowing championship. Given the range of qualification quotas available (from five to 11, where finishing fifth in the B Final would also secure a Paris ticket), it’s expected Rowing Ireland will also have its largest Olympic team.
Through injury or design, there are some surprise selections. Fiona Murtagh and Aifric Keogh (part of the women’s four which won Olympic bronze in Tokyo) form a women’s pair. Sanita Puspure is drafted into the women’s four, with Alison Bergin replacing her in the women’s double.
For O’Donovan and McCarthy, that Paris qualification — seven spots are available in the lightweight doubles — will be the very least they’ll want from Belgrade: “You’d hope so. It will just be about getting to the semi-final, making sure we’re in the final, then we can start thinking about winning medals. Same as any other regatta really.
“And for sure, you have to plan to be in Paris, obviously. The main one this year is qualifying from Belgrade, so we’re working back from that a little bit, but as soon as that passes, every week will be about preparation for Paris.
“We are always the ones to beat now, but I don’t think there’s any huge pressure which comes from that. I think if anything, we know that’s our standard, that we’ve done it before. And have the blueprint of how to get there as well. So we don’t really take it as people putting a target on our back, it’s more trying to reach the standard we set for ourselves, and trying to reach it every time.”
Even the mere mention of Olympic qualification puts rowing back on the Irish sporting radar, mostly drifting off in the years in between, although that’s never part of McCarthy’s motivation.
“I would never bother me, or any of the rowers I don’t think. It’s nice to see the sport getting recognised in Olympic years, and realistically, it is I guess a little bit unrelatable.
“I mean everyone knows what running as fast as you can feels like, whereas if you’re watching a rowing race, I don’t think you’d even necessarily know that it’s difficult. I feel like it’s hard to grasp for some people, but at the same time, we all love it. It’s great to see it get any recognition.
“Because it is a great sport, has given us so much, and it’s nice to be able to make it even more visible, so maybe more people will get the opportunities that we’ve been given. It’s just about capitalising on that, in Olympic year, when the sport is really visible.
“Sport Ireland have been really good to us, we have all the services we could want. The funding is definitely the most we’ve ever had. So everyone is in a really good spot, on the grind every day, really. Because it’s not every glamorous, it’s hard work.”
Rowing Ireland Team, World Rowing Championships, Belgrade, Serbia, September 3rd-10th
Para Mixed Double (PR2 Mix2x): Katie O’Brien (Galway RC), Steven McGowan (Galway RC)
Lightweight Women’s Double (LW2x): Margaret Cremen (University College Cork RC), Aoife Casey (Skibbereen RC)
Lightweight Women’s Scull (LW1x): Siobhán McCrohan (Tribesman RC)
Lightweight Men’s Double (LM2x); Paul O’Donovan (University College Cork RC); Fintan McCarthy (Skibbereen RC)
Lightweight Men’s Scull (LM1x): Jake McCarthy (Skibbereen RC)
Women’s Pair (W2-): Fiona Murtagh (University of Galway BC); Aifric Keogh (Dublin University Ladies BC)
Women’s Double (W2x): Alison Bergin (Fermoy RC), Zoe Hyde (Killorglin RC)
Women’s Four (W4-): Eimear Lambe (Old Collegians BC), Sanita Puspure (Old Collegians BC), Imogen Magner (Carlow RC), Natalie Long (Lee Valley RC)
Men’s Pair (M2-): Nathan Timoney (Queen’s University Belfast BC), Ross Corrigan (Portora BC)
Men’s Double (M2x): Philip Doyle (Portora BC), Daire Lynch (Clonmel RC)
Men’s Quad (M4x): Brian Colsh (University of Galway BC); Andrew Sheehan (University College Cork BC); Ronan Byrne (Shandon BC); Konan Pazzaia (Queen’s University Belfast BC)
Men’s Four (M4-): John Kearney (University College Cork RC), Jack Dorney (Shandon BC), Adam Murphy (University College Cork RC), Fionnan McQuillan-Tolan (University of Galway BC)
High-performance director: Antonio Maurogiovanni
World Rowing Championships 2023 schedule
Sunday, September 3rd
(All times Irish)
08:30 Men’s single sculls — heats
9:26 Women’s single sculls — heats
10:08 Men’s lightweight sculls — heats
10:51 Women’s lightweight sculls — heats
11:19 Men’s lightweight double sculls — heats
11:54 Men’s pair — heats
12:29 Men’s double sculls — heats
Olympic boat classes in Belgrade (with Paris 2024 quota spots)
Men/Women: single sculls (nine Paris 2024 quota spots available); double sculls (11 quotas); pair (11 quotas); quadruple sculls (seven quotas); four (seven quotas); eight (five quotas); lightweight double sculls (seven quotas).
