Paul O’Donovan broke free of the internet brouhaha he and brother Gary have created – and then left a set of World Championship rivals behind as well. The YouTube hits for the Olympic silver medallist now number in the hundreds of thousands, but Paul is most at home on the water. He won his heat of the lightweight single sculls at the Championships for senior non-Olympic events in Rotterdam with some ease.
“I really enjoyed being out there again,” he said. “It was my first international race in the single since 2014.”
There is constant interest in him because of the internet hits. “That stuff could become a bit annoying,” he said. He joked that he could now walk by people again without a word because he is competing.
The 22-year-old has generally been a slow starter, but in difficult conditions he set off with a very high stroke rate and had over four seconds to spare over second-placed Yuki Ikeda of Japan by half way.
He won by over five seconds from the Japanese and will have a favourable lane draw in tomorrow’s quarter final.
O’Donovan’s heat was the second-fastest of four. Germany’s Konstantin Steinhuebel was seven seconds faster in his hotly-contested heat win.
Gary, Paul’s brother and lightweight doubles partner, should arrive in Rotterdam in time for Thursday’s semi-final.
“He could’ve booked a flight today, but he wasn’t sure if he might be under the weather after the closing ceremony,” Paul said. “He has a lot of stops. A single flight would have been a huge price.”
Shane O’Driscoll and Mark O’Donovan, close friends of Gary and Paul and a fine lightweight double in their own right, will feature in those semi-finals. They had a real battle in their heat.
Two crews would qualify, and second place saw Ireland through. But they went hell for leather to beat Britain’s Joel Cassells (a Coleraine man and former Ireland junior) and Sam Scrimgeour, the current World Champions. They pressed them right down the course and were only vanquished in the final stages.
The Ireland U-23 heavyweight quadruple found its way to the semi-finals through their repechage, where they finished third. The under-23 lightweight pair and lightweight quadruple qualified directly from their heats on Sunday.
