When the sheet came around in the press area at the end of the day, Tony O'Connor and Gearoid Towey looked at it, then looked at it again and grinned.
Ireland stood joint third with Australia in the medals table at the World Championships in Lucerne last evening. Three gold medals, the final one won by Towey (24) and O'Connor (32) in the lightweight pair, can make such a difference.
Lucerne was the place to be this weekend if you were an Irish sports fan, and the flag-draped fans were there and loving it. The beautiful setting - an expanse of water between verdant hills - helped, and the sun shone. But mostly it was about those gold medals: Sam Lynch and Sinead Jennings in the lightweight single sculls and Towey and O'Connor in the pair.
"I think what it comes down to is bloody hard work," O'Connor said. The veteran of the group, who won his first of two World Championship bronzes in 1994, had also won two silvers, but no gold until yesterday.
In a way O'Connor had won on the double. Jennings (24), the Edinburgh-based pharmacist, is his fiancee. Both she and Lynch (25), bedecked with their gold medals, jumped into the water and swam out to the victorious crew at the end of the race. "Don't lose the gold," somebody shouted. "Don't lose the ring on your finger," O'Connor said.
On Saturday Jennings had sat with her parents and showed them the fax she had received from the President, Mrs McAleese, whose own family has a keen interest in the sport.
The president of the Irish Amateur Rowing Union, Mr Tom Fennessey, said the medals were a tribute to the athletes and the coaches who did so much work behind the scenes.
:quality(70)/s3.amazonaws.com/arc-authors/irishtimes/19ffd303-107f-4204-8d69-c75811946e70.png)