When Paul O’Donovan and his brother Gary were small boys and ripe for wonder, their father Teddy used take them to the national championships on Inniscarra Lake and other regattas where Skibbereen crews were going into battle. In their eyes the oarsmen were giants.
They badgered their father to take them out on the water until one day he relented. Paul reckons that he was seven and Gary was eight. With nobody around to help, Teddy wrestled a boat into the Ilen river. In they jumped.
“Myself and Gary were only small boyeens at the time, we had no strength,” said O’Donovan years later. “So he [Teddy] was dragging this big boat down the slip himself and threw it on the water. We thought we were the bee’s knees going out. I’d say we were awful but we loved it.”
It wasn’t a passing infatuation, they plunged through the surface and immersed themselves. As soon as the internet reached their home in Lisheen they scoured YouTube for old Olympic races and World Championship regattas.
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O’Donovan reckons he was 12 when he decided he would row at the London Olympics, six years later. Others from Skibbereen had been Olympians and that gave flesh to the dream. The 2012 Games came too soon but the Olympics would be the canvass for his glorious talent and his endless ambition.
O’Donovan is 30 now and showing no signs of slowing down. He pays a lot of attention to the science of his sport and his physiology, and before the Olympics the numbers told him that he had never been fitter.
On Friday he became not just the greatest Irish Olympian of all time, with two gold medals and one silver at three different Games, but one of the greatest rowers in the history of the Olympics. There was a Croatian crew this week, though, who reached the podium for the fourth time at the Olympics and Steve Redgrave did it in Sydney in 2000. Matching that achievement must be the next summit.
This was the last Olympics for lightweight rowing and O’Donovan has already dipped his toe in the open weight division, racing in the single at the European Championships earlier this year; he finished eighth. The only alternative is to quit. In his mind that’s not an option.
“We could put on a few kilos of weight,” he said before the Games, “but we probably wouldn’t put on a huge amount anyway. Even at the minute we’re not too far off the pace of the [Irish heavyweight] double. They’re up there consistently winning medals [Daire Lynch and Philip Doyle] and its kind of 50/50 between us who wins the pieces in the training sessions.”
O’Donovan’s haul of medals at major championships is staggering. At the latest count he has two Olympic golds, one Olympic silver, six world titles and three European titles. This year’s World Championships take place in Canada in a couple of weeks and the programme is made up entirely of non-Olympic events. O’Donovan would have been entitled to a rest but instead he is the only one of the Olympic team to commit to an event; he will line up in the lightweight single scull.
In recent years O’Donovan has often been described as the best “pound for pound” rower in the world. These assertions are always impossible to prove. His stamina, though, and his desire have been extraordinary. At elite level the treadmill never stops. In full training O’Donovan and McCarthy would be on the water at least six days a week. The other day might only involve a gym session but it wouldn’t be a day off.
In his parallel life on the riverbank O’Donovan trained first as a physiotherapist and then turned his attention to medicine, qualifying with first class honours from UCC earlier this year. Juggling his academic life with the relentless demands of elite rowing was a remarkable feat.
In the mixed zone after Friday’s race O’Donovan was asked if he thought he could get better still?
“I think maybe a little bit. I mean, not much. A small bit, yeah. I think over a period of time I’ll be looking to get into the open weight squad for LA, for sure.”
No end in sight.
