Staying ‘ice cool’ to become World Rowing Men’s Crew of the Year

On a hot July day in Tokyo, Japan, two Irish rowers made history when they rowed the Sea Forest Waterway regatta course, finishing the 2000m Olympic final in 6:06.43.

Fintan McCarthy and Paul O’Donovan had set a World Best Time a couple of days earlier, and coming into the final were the favourites as the reigning World Champions. In the final they not only took gold but they became the first Irish rowers to become Olympic Champions. They’d achieved it in the very tough lightweight men’s double sculls. This also helped them secure the 2021 World Rowing Men’s Crew of the Year Award.

“We put a lot of effort in going fast off the start and it paid off,” said O’Donovan in an interview to Irish TV RTE after the race. “There was a couple of times when Fintan called up and I was like shhhh, bit early for this now, but I suppose we better try it because the Germans were still ahead of us.”

McCarthy does the calls in the boat but, as O’Donovan says, the talk is very limited. “You’re rowing hard, you can’t be talking like you’re talking now.”

O’Donovan is the more experienced of the duo. At the Rio Olympics he won silver in the lightweight double along with his brother, Gary. This was the first ever Olympic rowing medal for Ireland. It made the O’Donovan’s heroes in Ireland and the brothers became famous for their dry wit in the many interviews after their Rio medal.

The Rio Olympic silver was won by O’Donovan at just 22 years old. He had been rowing at the elite level for five years having come through as a single sculler on the Irish junior national team. He then teamed up with brother Gary in 2015 in the lightweight double and raced in the final at the European Rowing Championships. A year later they stood together on the Olympic podium.

Meanwhile, as the O’Donovans were having Olympic success, McCarthy was busy competing on the Irish under 23 team in the lightweight men’s quadruple sculls. His crew made the final but didn’t medal. For the next couple of years, McCarthy rowed with his twin brother. Then in 2019, he was paired with O’Donovan and the duo won the 2019 World Rowing Championships. There was no looking back now.

O’Donovan and McCarthy come from the same rowing club in the small town of Skibbereen (population 2700). Mc Carthy remembers first getting to row the double with O’Donovan just after the O’Donovan’s had won their Rio medal. “I pulled really hard for the whole 16k (training row) trying to impress him! I remember being chuffed because after the outing, our coach Dominic Casey asked jokingly if I’d make it to the Olympics one day and Paul saying I’d get there alright.”

The duo left nothing to chance as they prepared for the Tokyo Olympics. “I made sure I trained really hard so I could say I tried everything to make it happen and have no regrets,” says McCarthy.

With the Tokyo Olympics moved to 2021 McCarthy says the extra year meant there was less pressure of going to the Olympics as the reigning World Champions. “I think because there had been two years since we raced a big championships the world title didn’t really mean a whole lot,” says McCarthy. “I knew I had improved since then and I could tell we were a bit faster than in 2019 so I took confidence from that.”

Calling on his Olympic experience, the advice O’Donovan gave to McCarthy leading into the Olympics was to not underestimate the hot weather, and to make sure he felt good during the first half of the race. “This definitely stands out because in our first race I did not feel good in the first half at all, and thought I’d gone too hard. Turns out it was just very hot.”

And McCarthy’s favourite quote from coach Casey, “He always tells me to be ‘ice cool.’”