After the finish line Fintan McCarthy raised a fist towards the packed stands and leaned forward to grab Paul O’Donovan’s hand. No game face, no mixed zone playacting. In the five years that McCarthy and O’Donovan have shared a boat they have dominated their division and won every race that counted. But this year was tricky for a while and in the first half of the season they weren’t moving like Olympic champions. Now they are.
It was a glorious morning for Irish rowing at the Olympic regatta. McCarthy and O’Donovan were the last crew into the water but before them Ross Corrigan and Nathan Timoney had reached the final of the men’s pair and Margaret Cremen and Aoife Casey had come through their semi-final in the women’s lightweight double scull.
Added to Philip Doyle and Daire Lynch in the men’s double scull, Ireland has four boats in Olympics finals, more than we’ve ever had before.
O’Donovan and McCarthy were commanding in their semi-final, hitting the front before halfway and controlling the race from there. In the World Cup at Lucerne earlier in the year they had finished behind the Swiss, but on Wednesday at the Vaires-Sur-Marne Nautical Stadium they beat them by more than a boat length.
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During the early months of the year McCarthy was debilitated by illness and injury and when the World Cup season came around, they had fewer miles done in the boat than they normally would. All that stuff has been wiped from their hard drive now.
“It’s nice to put all that behind me, to be honest,” said McCarthy. “It’s been an eventful year for me in terms of ups and downs in training and stuff, but probably feeling the best I’ve felt coming into a championships. Camp went really well, probably one of our best, so ticking all the boxes.
“I’m not sure totally [how much training he missed] but it was the cumulative weeks since January, really. I’ve had a few illnesses and a few injuries, but the last two months have been some of the best training we’ve ever done.”
In the semi-final of the men’s pair Corrigan and Timoney hung tough. The Fermanagh duo went hard at the start and were in front at the 500-metre marker. By halfway, though, they had slipped to second and with 500 metres to go they were down to third, less than two seconds clear of New Zealand. In the sprint for the line, though, Corrigan and McCarthy increased their rate to 44 strokes a minute and New Zealand couldn’t close them down.
“That was epic,” said Timoney. “Epic racing, definitely a replication of last year’s World Championship final. We had to go out a little harder than we had in the heats. We knew we’d definitely suffer a little bit for it in the second half and obviously in the last 250 the Kiwis were coming back at us. But, you know, to be in front you’re in control of the race. We can see them coming and we can react. I think we executed that pretty well. I think we were hanging on for dear life in the last 150.”
Cremen and Casey were terrific too in the semi-final of the women’s lightweight pair, beating off the French crew in the final 200 metres to qualify in third place. It was clear from early in the race that the qualifying places would lie between four boats, and Ireland were in fourth after 1,000 metres and 1,500 metres. In the final sprint, though, France cracked, and Cremen and Casey were 3.5 seconds clear at the line.
“It was hard,” said Casey, “but looking back it almost felt easy because, you know, when you’re enjoying it in the middle of the race, you’re in the pain cave, but you don’t even have time to think about anything. When we got to the nitty gritty in that last 40 metres we just wanted to empty the tank, which we did.”
In the women’s pair, however, Aifric Keogh and Fiona Murtagh couldn’t find anything and trailed in last in their semi-final. Keogh and Murtagh had both been bronze medallists as part of the women’s four in Tokyo and had finished on the podium at every World Cup event this season, but they couldn’t source that form here.
Doyle and Lynch are the first Irish crew into a final on Thursday morning (10.30am) in the men’s double scull. The pair came into the regatta as second seeds and have delivered on that status with two dominant performances this week.
Netherlands are favourites and Lynch and Doyle have not beaten them since both crews came together at the beginning of last year. Are they getting closer? “They’re some athletes to be honest,” said Doyle after the semi-final. “It’ll take some performance to beat them, but I think we have a performance like that in us.”
Next question.
