– Niall Kelly reports from Lagoa Stadium, Rio de Janeiro
PAUL AND GARY O’Donovan had been whisked out of the press conference room and into a flurry of media obligations when Morten Espersen, Rowing Ireland’s performance director, was asked to make sense of it all.
How had the two young brothers, just two years after teaming up in the lightweight double sculls, delivered Ireland’s first Olympic rowing medal?
Espersen, who masterminded an overhaul of the high performance system in his native Denmark before arriving in Ireland in 2013 to attempt the same, pointed the finger in one direction: Skibbereen Rowing Club.
“They are very nice people,” he explained, “but they have a very strong mentality towards racing.
“I think that’s probably coming from the environment, from Skibbereen where they are trained, so that’s fantastic.”
Under the guidance of Dominic Casey, the O’Donovans’ coach, the west Cork town has become a breeding ground for the best and the brightest in Irish rowing, as detailed by Kieran McCarthy last year in the Southern Star.
Of the 15 athletes Ireland sent to last year’s World Championships, five had learned the ropes in Skibb.
But this international pedigree is far from a new phenomenon. The O’Donovans might be Ireland’s first Olympic rowing medallists but they’re not the first Olympians from the club, which was only founded in 1970. That trail was already blazed by brothers Eugene (2004, 2008) and Richard Coakley (2008), and Tim Harnedy (2004).
Casey’s hunger and diligence as a coach is the common factor in all of this success. When Espersen spotted the strength in depth, a group of hungry young athletes who could drive each other on, and applied his vision for a lightweight double sculls team, it was a perfect match.
Crucially, there were clever compromises made along the way. Don McLachlan is the lead coach to the Irish high performance unit but there was little sense in splitting up the O’Donovans and Casey.
“Dominic is the main man,” Paul explained as Friday’s medal win started to sink in.
He’s just always looking to learn and never looking back, and keeps trying to push forward and forward.
Under Casey’s vision, rowing in Skibbereen has shed the elitist stereotype it has elsewhere. There’s a schools participation programme, Paul explains, aimed at getting fifth- and sixth-class students from local primary schools out on the water.
“There’s not always huge kind of participation in it but the ones we have then are absolutely exceptional,” he beams.
“We’re up to, I think, 160 national championships (titles) now this year. They just surpassed the Neptune Rowing Club from Dublin at the top of the table there.Neptune have been around since, I’d say, nearly the 1800s so that’s a fantastic achievement for such a small rural club.”
The O’Donovans have known Casey for as long as they have been on the water, the coach a former team-mate of their dad Teddy during his own rowing days.
Theirs is a dynamic that works.
“We both are,” Paul said when asked which brother is the boss of the pair, before adding, “and Dominic as well I suppose. We make a good team.
“There’s a lot of shouting and roaring there at times. Myself and Gary would be throwing slaps over who’s making the orders and what we’re going to do.
We come to a good compromise eventually and it’s usually the right thing to go with between the three of us.
The compromise for Friday’s final was reached during the week, Espersen revealed.
“They always have been very strong at the finish and we tried to push them the other night to come a little earlier out and hang on to the pack at an earlier stage – so they can build on in the middle and that’s what they did.
“They were only 1.4 seconds behind the leading boat [at 500m] and at the 1,000m they were less than a second behind,so they did it right.
“I still think they need a little more experience. I know they’re over the moon and that’s fine and that’s great. But I think they’ll be a real hot shot in the future.”
The O’Donovans, bigger and better? It’s a prospect that should give the world’s best rowers pause for thought — and excite Irish sport.
