Taking Over Tokyo - Olympic Magazine by southernstarIRL

Taking over Tokyo SATURDAY JULY 24, 2021

24-PAGE SPECIAL SOUVENIR ON WEST CORK’S TOKYO OLYMPIANS

THE SUPER

SEVEN West Cork athletes – six rowers and one sprinter – have been selected to represent Ireland at the Olympic Games in Tokyo that run from this Friday, July 23rd until Sunday, August 8th. These are our seven local heroes. Phil Healy (26) will make history when she becomes the first Irish woman ever to compete in three events at the same Olympics. The Ballineen woman will race in the women’s 200m and 400m as well as with the Irish mixed 4x400m relay team. Aoife Casey (22) is West Cork’s youngest Olympian at these Games and the Skibbereen rower will compete in the Irish lightweight women’s double alongside Margaret Cremen from Rochestown. Emily Hegarty (22) is a key member of the Ireland women’s four crew that is in terrific form this year. One of six Skibbereen rowers selected for the Games, she is Skibbereen Rowing Club’s first-ever heavyweight Olympian. Fintan McCarthy (24) goes into these Olympics as a World and European champion in the lightweight men’s double, having dominated this event in recent times. Skibb man Fintan is one half of an all-Skibbereen boat, too. Paul O’Donovan (27) is the best Irish lightweight rower of his generation and is the other half of the Irish lightweight men’s double, alongside Fintan. Paul is a 2016 Olympic silver medallist and a four-time World champion. Lydia Heaphy (23) from Leap is the reserve for the Irish lightweight women’s double – and the Skibbereen rower is the ideal back-up. She won a silver medal at the 2021 World Cup II in the lightweight single. Gary O’Donovan (28) is a 2016 Olympic silver medallist, a former World champion and the reserve for the Irish lightweight men’s double. He is a world-class replacement.

TAKING OVER TOKYO THE SOUTHERN STAR

Something in the air, alright, in West Cork Here's your quick West Cork guide to the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo

same morning, at 12.54am. Now onto next Thursday morning, July 29th, when both the men’s and women’s lightweight doubles finals take place. The men’s A final is at 1.50am Irish time, followed by the women’s A final at 2.10am. The B finals in both are later in the morning: men’s B final at 3.02am followed by the women’s B final.

o, it’s here. It’s finally here. The 2020 Olympics are about to take over the summer of 2021. Forget the heatwave here at home, it’s all about the Olympic Games in Tokyo for the next few weeks – that’s where the red-hot action will be. We’ve had to wait an extra year, all because of Covid, but we’re certain it will be worth it. The Games will run from this Friday, July 23rd when the opening ceremony takes place up until Sunday, August 8th. Sit back, relax and enjoy.

Is there much West Cork interest at these Olympics?

Yes, yes there is. This is the biggestever Team Ireland squad sent to an Olympics with 116 athletes selected, bettering the previous record of 81 athletes picked for London 1948 – and of the 116 athletes chosen, West Cork has a record number of Olympians going to these Games. We are taking over Tokyo. Six rowers from Skibbereen have been named in Team Ireland while the queen of Irish sprinting Phil Healy will be in action, too. That’s SEVEN athletes in total.

Talk to us about the rowers.

Well, all six are from the medal factory that is Skibbereen Rowing Club – that’s where they learned to row, then race and then win. Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy are in the Irish men’s lightweight double, with Gary O’Donovan as the back-up. Then we have Aoife Casey in the Irish women’s lightweight double, and Lydia Heaphy is the sub here. There’s Emily Hegarty, too, in the Irish women’s four.

And our rowers’ chances of Olympic medals?

Touch wood, cross your fingers and light some candles, because we have realistic medal contenders from West Cork. Step forward, Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy in the Irish men’s lightweight double. They are reigning World and European champions and have been dominant in this event. They are the favourites for gold and the crew to beat, but that means nothing when the boats take to the water in Tokyo. The Irish women’s four with Emily will also be in the conversation if they get to the A final.

So, you mentioned Phil Healy earlier. Fill us in there.

And what about Phil Healy?

Skibbereen rower Fintan McCarthy is getting great support from home with his family - parents Tom and Sue and siblings Jake and Caitin cheering him on in Tokyo. (Photo: Anne Minihane) The fastest woman Ireland has ever seen will make more history when she becomes the first Irish woman ever to compete in three events at the same Olympics. Phil will race individually in the women’s 200m and 400m, as well as take the lead in the Irish mixed 4x400m relay team. Again, she’s a trailblazer.

Seven athletes is a lot from one area, but then again this is West Cork so we’re not surprised. Any more locals flying our flag in Tokyo?

We can’t forget Dominic Casey from Skibbereen who is the lightweight rowing coach and there’s also Clonakilty native Dr Kate Kirby who is Ireland’s Olympic Sport Psychologist.

Tokyo is a long way from West Cork, so is there anything we should be aware of?

Yes, the time difference. Tokyo is eight hours ahead of us here in West Cork so keep that in mind when you’re planning your TV viewing. It will affect us most here watching our rowers as we will have to stay up through the night, but it will be worth it. Keep an eye, too, on Southern Star social media and we’ll have up-to-date info as the Olympics progress.

That’s good to know, so what time are our local heroes in action?

Okay, so from a West Cork point of view, it’s our Skibbereen rowers up first in week one, and then Phil Healy follows on in week two. Rowing gets underway this Friday and Irish medal hope Sanita Puspure, in the women’s single sculls, will be

the first from Team Ireland in action. First up of the Skibb rowers is Aoife Casey, and Margaret Cremen, in the lightweight women’s double; their heat takes place at 2.50am Irish time on Saturday morning. Then it’s Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy’s lightweight men’s double heat at 3.30am. These are followed by the women’s four heats which will see Emily Hegarty and Co take to the water at 4am on Saturday morning. The repechages for the men’s and women’s lightweight doubles – and hopefully the Skibb rowers won’t need these – will be held early on Sunday morning, July 25th. The repechages for the women’s four will take place early on Monday morning. We’ll all be up early on Tuesday morning, July 27th, as the A/B semifinals of both the men’s and women’s lightweight doubles take place, and our Skibb rowers will, fingers crossed, take to the water after 3am (Irish time). Early on Wednesday morning (1.50am Irish time), the women’s four final will take place and hopefully we will see Emily Hegarty in action here. The B final is on the

Phil will be busy, busy, but she’s well able for the schedule that awaits her. She will get her Olympics underway on Friday, July 30th with the mixed 4x400m relay, with her 200m heats and semi-finals on Monday, August 2nd and the 400m heats on Tuesday, August 3rd.

And where can we watch the Olympics?

Of course, The Southern Star is the go-to place for all the news about our Skibb rowers and Phil Healy, and RTÉ will be the home of Tokyo 2020 on TV this year – they have it all covered. Now, let’s all watch and enjoy as West Cork competes on the world stage.

Anything else worth mentioning?

Good job you asked, as Skibbereen Rowing Club has opened a pop-up shop on North Street in Skibbereen for the Olympics. This is a must-visit to get your hands on all the necessary Skibbereen rowing merchandise and souvenirs that will be worth their weight in gold quite soon. The pop-up shop will be open for the next week or two, from Monday to Saturday and from 10am to 4pm. From the must-have tee-shirts to bobble hats, from flags to car stickers, from books to neck warmers, make sure you are dressed to impress as Skibb rowers take over Tokyo!

Time Difference

WE all can’t wait for the Olympics to start this Friday and for the action to get underway – but remember there is an EIGHT-HOUR time difference between West Cork and Tokyo. The Japanese capital is eight hours ahead of us here in West Cork. For example, if it’s 5pm here on a Wednesday, then it’s 1am on Thursday morning in Tokyo. Keep that in mind when you’re planning to sit down and cheer on our West Cork Olympians because no-one wants to miss watching our own take on the best in the world.

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TAKING OVER TOKYO THE SOUTHERN STAR

KIERAN McCARTHY explains why Ballineen Bullet Phil Healy is the queen of Irish women’s sprinting

ORN WITH IT: Phil’s need for speed all starts with her genetic talent, a gift from her DNA. Her speed comes from her dad, Jerry – he holds All-Ireland medals at masters’ level in the 100m and 200m, and his side of the family is known as the ‘reathaí’ (Irish for runners). Her speed endurance comes from her mom, Phil, as there’s a history of long-distance running on that side. End result: Phil has the ideal mixture of speed and endurance. A good base to start with. Not to forget her older sister Joan who is also one of Ireland’s top women’s sprinters.

TTENTION TO DETAIL: Phil is a student of her sport, understands it so well and, down the line, would be a brilliant coach. A sponge for information she is learning all the time, whether it’s about physiology or the technical side of athletics or what works and doesn’t work in training. She’s always evolving. She sees things other coaches don’t see, her coach Shane McCormack says. Phil knows every little percent counts and is very diligent, too, to the needs of the sport and her recovery; from nutrition to massage, from physio work to sleeping. All the bases are covered.

WHY PHIL IS THE QUEEN OF IRISH SPRINTING

BORN TO RUN: Bandon AC star Phil Healy has won 14 national senior titles.

VERYTHING – Phil the athlete is the full package; she has a bit of everything, physically and mentally. She has the genes, as we’ve learned. Her speed endurance is very impressive and when she needs it, it’s there. Consistency is key, too, and that shines through in her training because Phil applies herself fully to every training session and does everything that Shane McCormack asks of her. So when she goes to the well and reaches in, there’s always something there. She won’t settle for mediocrity either, is the consummate professional, and no matter what is going on in her life, she gets the most out of herself and every training session. There’s no fanfare either, she’s not easily distracted and eliminates the noise around her. When there’s a job to do, she does it. Phil ticks all the boxes.

UROPEAN INDOORS – On Sunday, March 7th, 2021, Phil showed the watching world that this woman from Knockaneady in Ballineen can hold her own on the big stage. At the European Indoor Athletics Championships in Poland, she qualified for the 400m final. There, she finished fourth in a worldclass field, powering past Dutch star Lieke Klaver on the home stretch, agonisingly two-tenths of a second outside the medals, but this was the performance that showed she can mix it with the best in the world. Even more impressive, given it was championship running, Phil set a new PB of 51.94. This performance was years in the making, the long overnight success story that’s been building for years, and it showed she’s on the right track and getting better and better.

OOK WITHIN: Back in 2018, coach Shane McCormack likened his star student to Roy Keane. He said: ‘It’s that drive she has, what’s behind the exterior.’ When they first met he knew Phil had the raw materials he could work with, but he was impressed by her spirit and determination; you either have that or you don’t, and she does. Phil has character and resilience, and behind those brown eyes there’s a warrior inside. Look at the recent 200m final showdown with rising star Rhasidat Adeleke at the senior national championships when Phil battled back down the home stretch to win by one hundredth of a second in what would have been a new Irish record, if not for the wind. Phil showed that day she’s still number one.

EGACY: Stats don’t lie. Instead, they curtsy in front of the Queen of Irish Women’s Sprinting. Up until May 2021, Phil held the Irish women’s 100m and 200m national records – and was the first Irish woman in 40 years to hold both records at the same time – until Rhasidat Adeleke beat her 200m time. Still, Phil holds the 100m record (11.28, set in June

she was studying nursing at UCC but that was taking its toll on athletics and she wasn’t reaching her potential. Phil was being coached remotely at that stage; not ideal at all. So she made another big call, swapped UCC for Waterford Institute of Technology (where her coach works with the athletics club) and changed careers, too, and started a Masters in applied computer technology in Waterford. Phil hasn’t shirked the hard, lifechanging decisions and can look back with no regrets. She took a chance and it’s paying off.

TRIPLE TREAT: Phil Healy will compete in three events at the Olympic Games. 2018) and while she is now second in the Irish women’s 200m all-time list (22.99), she was the first Irish woman to ever break 23 seconds in this distance. She is third in the Irish women’s 400m all-time list (51.50). Phil has also won 14 national senior titles, between outdoors and indoors. Incredibly, she's also the first Irish woman ever to compete in three events (200m, 400m and 4x400m mixed relay) at the one Olympics. She continually raises the bar and pushes Irish women’s sprinting front and centre. Her legacy is that she’s driving standards and the rest are following.

NCREDIBLE MOMENTS – Her highlights reel is creaking under the pressure, but it shows this 26-yearold has already crammed a lot in. There was her ‘from the depths of hell’ relay run for UCC at the Irish University Championships in 2016, and that footage went viral. There was the night in 2018 at the CIT track when she became the first Irish woman to ever dip under 23 seconds for 200 metres. There was the World University Games in July 2019 when she made the final despite breaking a metatarsal in her foot just 12 weeks earlier. There was her fourth place in the 400m final at the European

Indoors this year. And there are many more as well. All incredible moments that highlight just how this trailblazer has wowed and excited.

O REGRETS – This hasn’t fallen into Phil’s lap, she’s had to make some big calls and sacrifices along this journey. Go back to late 2013 when she, only 18 years old, reached out to Wexford man Shane McCormack to see if he was interested in coaching her; what he was doing resonated with her. She took matters into her own hands. Her story is dotted with big decisions, like in 2017 when she swapped careers –

OT FINISHED YET: There’s more to come in the weeks, months and years ahead. The Tokyo Olympics will be the high point so far but it’s also a stepping stone to a future full of possibilities, faster times and even more records. Phil turns 27 in November and before the 2024 Paris Olympics roll around, there are World and European Championships, outdoors and indoors. To some extent, she’s only getting started in the 400m. It’s taken time – and years of hard work – to build her to the stage where she’s currently at as a 400m runner and the feeling is she will get faster. The glory years are just around the corner so let’s sit back and enjoy the heroics of West Cork’s fastest woman.

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TAKING OVER TOKYO THE SOUTHERN STAR

Phil Healy is creating history on the track as records tumble and history is made, but her off-the-track legacy is even more important. The Ballineen bullet, who will compete in three events at the Games, chatted to KIERAN McCARTHY ahead of the Olympics

ÁIRE Bohane was nine years old when he met his hero for the first time. He left football training early that night to make the 20-minute journey from Skibbereen to Rosscarbery. He didn’t want to be late. He was still dressed in his GAA training gear when he arrived at the Celtic Ross Hotel with his aunt Anne. Dáire had heard that Ireland’s fastest woman, Phil Healy, was being presented with a West Cork Sports Star monthly award on this Tuesday night in August 2018 – and he wanted to meet her. He stole the show. ‘I was taken aback that night because he really looked up to me and you could see it meant a lot to him,’ Phil recalls. Dáire was full of questions. Good ones, too. He runs with Skibbereen AC and loves athletics so he knows his stuff. He even brought a programme from that summer’s Cork City Sports meet that he wanted Phil to sign. That was when she became the first Irish woman ever to break 23 seconds for the 200 metres. Dáire reeled off her record time: 22.99 seconds. He knew her PBs, too. He was a big fan, and still is now. He met his hero for the first time that night and she exceeded his expectations. But that’s Phil: a superstar on the track, impressively normal off it. No airs and graces. No grandeur. There’s no bullshit there, her coach Shane McCormack explains. She’s just Phil. She’s not one for the spotlight or the fanfare; that’s not her at all. Even the tag of ‘Ireland’s fastest woman’ doesn’t sit comfortably with her. That grounding, traceable back to home, is a key piece of her jigsaw. ‘I see myself the same as everyone else. I’m just normal,’ Phil explains. ‘I train really, really hard, and I’m getting the reward for the work that I’m putting in. ‘I still find the attention surreal, to be honest. It is a bit mad, isn’t it? Even when I am back home, I keep the head down. I’m not into the fuss.’ But she makes time for her fans. Like she did with Dáire that night. And there are many, many more like him. Phil knows that there are people who look up to her as a role model so it’s important she gives them the time they deserve. She still remembers players who signed autographs for her when she was a kid following GAA. She remembers, too, those who didn’t. ‘You could be the difference between them staying in the sport or not,’ she says. She’s relatable, down-to-earth, with an inspiring story: the girl from a farm in Knockaneady in rural West Cork who became Ireland's fastest woman ever. But she wasn’t always

‘I SEE MYSELF THE SAME AS EVERYONE ELSE. I’M JUST NORMAL’ the fastest – and that’s why Phil’s story is so important. *** In athletics Phil was a late developer. She didn’t hit her stride until her late teens. She could have given up and was advised by one person that, maybe, athletics wasn’t the sport for her. Phil was dabbling in a few sports at the time, dipping her toes in different ponds to see where she could make the biggest ripple. There was athletics with Bandon AC, camogie with Enniskeane, football with St Oliver Plunkett’s and basketball with her secondary school, Coláiste na Toirbhirte in Bandon. It’s a good thing that she has a stubborn streak and an older sister Joan who was the sprinting trailblazer in the Healy household

‘I still find the attention surreal, to be honest. I’m not into the fuss’ in Ballineen. Joan, two years older, was – and still is – one of the fastest women in Ireland, still joint fourth on the all-time Irish women’s 60m indoor rankings, alongside Phil. It was the younger sister who was hanging onto Joan’s coattails in those early years. ‘It’s because of Joan that I stuck with athletics,’ Phil says. ‘If she wasn’t in the sport and doing what she was doing I would have given up, maybe listened to that advice and stuck with the GAA instead. Being told that is a big knock to your confidence, especially when

ON YOUR MARKS: Phil Healy is ready to explode out of the blocks at the Olympics. (Photo: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile)

you are that age. ‘But I stuck with it and I’m here now going to an Olympics in three events.’ It’s a story Phil feels is important to tell. From being told athletics wasn’t the sport for her, she’s blossomed to become the queen of Irish women’s sprinting, the fastest woman ever in this country and, now, the first Irish woman ever to compete in three events at the same Olympics. Again, she’s inspiring. A real trailblazer in the notoriously hard and lonely world of sprinting. Shane McCormack believes Phil will inspire a generation of kids, both girls and boys, to dream big and work hard. She has shown what’s possible, he says. It’s hard to argue with him. ‘Kids find that if they’re not doing well in a certain sport at an early age, they can let go of it very quickly, but kids need to be encouraged. I was

definitely a late developer and didn’t win much underage, but look where I am right now,’ Healy says. ‘I was always making Munster finals where it was the top three that qualified for the All-Irelands, but I was always fourth. It was the same three that qualified from Munster all the time – and they were then the top three at the All-Irelands. Sarah Lavin was there, so too was Grainne Moynihan. ‘I probably hadn’t gone to AllIreland schools’ championships at that stage either – and that’s the big thing for athletes at that age.’ When she was 16 years old, Phil gave athletics her full attention. She dropped the other sports. Her times dropped, too. She now had more time to dedicate to athletics. Phil was up and running. Liz Coomey in Bandon AC was her coach and this was an

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TAKING OVER TOKYO

important phase in her development as Phil became a regular on the podium. This is the sport that fits her and she likes to be in control of her own destiny; the end result is linked to what she puts into it. In 2011, her first serious year, she finished third in the 100m, representing Ireland, at the schools’ international in Cardiff. There was gold in the 100m and 200m at the All-Ireland juvenile championships. Gold, again, for Ireland in the 100m at the Celtic Games and a bronze in the 200m. The collection was building, fast. 2012 was another step forward as her times tumbled and medals followed. Gold in the 100m and 200m at both the Munster Juniors and U19 All-Irelands. Gold, too, in the 100m at the All-Ireland schools. The list goes on and on and on. Then in 2013, her Leaving Cert year, she made a statement: Phil raced to the 100m and 200m senior girls’ double at the All-Ireland schools in record times. That was also the year she finished fourth in the 100m final at the European Athletics Junior Championships in Rieti, Italy – and that was hugely significant in her rise from talented teen to what she has become, a serial winner. ‘That was the moment that I realised that I could go somewhere here,’ she reflects, and it’s then we saw how Phil, who turned 19 in November 2013 and was now in college in UCC, was not afraid to make the tough decisions. *** Together, Phil and her coach Shane McCormack are the dream team. Look at what they have achieved together, especially since she moved to Waterford in 2017, as she switched courses, careers, colleges and counties. A big move, but necessary if she wanted to progress to the next level. She took an even bigger gamble in late 2013 when she sent to an email to McCormack asking if he would be interested in coaching her. ‘That was the year that I knew I needed to make changes and that everything needed to move up another level,’ she explains. Phil had worked with Wexford man McCormack at Munster development squads previously and they clicked. ‘There was only one person in my mind that I wanted to coach me and I was very lucky that he did say yes,’ she says. It was a risk on McCormack’s side, too, as he was based in Wexford and working as development officer with Waterford IT Athletics Club. But he saw something in Phil that convinced him. The talent was there of course, but it was her mentality, her drive and determination. ‘I have always said that she has the backbone and the character to make a leap of faith that was, for both of us, full of risks. For someone who was 18 to make that call took a lot of spirit and drive that she has in buckets,’ he explained. Her courage and bravery are also important parts of the Phil jigsaw,

PHIL’S TOP

THE SOUTHERN STAR

AHEAD of the biggest championships of her life, here we relive Phil Healy’s top five races.

STARSTRUCK: Phil Healy with young fan Dáire Bohane in 2018.

‘Shane always says “don’t look back with regrets” and that sticks with me’ and give us a peak behind the curtain to see how this West Cork woman developed into the Olympian she is today. For the four years she studied in UCC, she was coached remotely by McCormack. It wasn’t ideal. It was Phil on her own with a watch on the track. Once every two weeks, she got to see her coach. She still competed in major championships every year but she wasn’t unlocking her potential. Her college course, nursing, didn’t help either. Eightweek work placements included 13-hour shifts back to back and night shifts, and that impacted athletics. It took its toll. It was time for another tough decision: did Phil want to be a nurse? ‘I have made some hard decisions and they take a lot of thought. I ask myself, “Am I making the right decision?” Shane always says “don’t look back with regrets” and that sticks with me,’ Phil explains. Education is important to her as well and played a role in her decisions. ‘When I was 19, 20-years-old, I changed careers and left nursing. I did a one-year course in applied computer technology before I moved then to Waterford Institute of Technology and started a Masters there in Enterprise Computer Software. I saw Shane every day from then on and I got to train in a group, and I haven’t looked back.’ Still, moving to Waterford stretched the gap between her and Knockaneady. She’s a home bird. Loves getting home. Loves West Cork, too. ‘Even though Waterford and Cork are really close, I may as well be in America. I never get to go home. Before I flew out to Tokyo, the last time I was home was in March – but

SISTER ACT: Phil Healy and her big sister Joan playing at home as kids. these are the sacrifices that you have to make and it’s hard but they do pay off,’ she says. The switch to Waterford helped Phil move up to the next level and the team that McCormack built around her in Waterford moulded Ireland’s fastest-ever woman. *** It’s time for times. And records. And accolades. In June 2018, Phil broke the Irish 100m women’s record when she raced into the history books in 11.28 seconds in a meet at Santry. The next month, she became the first Irish woman ever to break 23 seconds for the 200m. She ran 22.99 at the Cork City Sports in CIT. A national record and a PB. She was the first female Irish athlete in 40 years to hold both the 100m and 200m records. Phil has racked up 14 national senior titles between indoors and

outdoors, from 60m to 100m to 200m and 400m, showing an incredible range. There was a double gold at June’s national senior championships, including her unforgettable 200m triumph when she beat her biggest rival, 18-year-old rising star Rhasidat Adeleke, by one hundredth of a second in what would have been a new Irish record if not for the wind being cruelly above the legal limit. She set a new 400m PB this year too, 51.50 in Belfast in May. Remember, Phil is only 26 years old. She’s already achieved an incredible amount, but there’s still more to come. She hasn’t fully unlocked her 400m potential, yet she finished fourth in a worldclass field at the European Indoor Championships in March. There’s another Olympics in three years’ time and World and European championships in between. At this Olympics she will be the first Irish woman to compete in three events – 200m, 400m and Irish mixed 4x400m relay team – at the same Games. More history. She’s breaking down barriers and raising standards all the time, and her legacy will be more than her PBs and her records, instead it’s how she is showing what hard work and dedication can bring. Kids all over West Cork can see this, too. She’s the girl from Ballineen that didn’t have an athletics track to train on in West Cork on the way up, but still developed into Ireland’s greatest women’s sprinter. She’s inspiring people of all ages, including Dáire Bohane, the young fan she met three years ago. He has a message for his hero: ‘Best of luck in Tokyo, Phil. Run as fast as you can in the Olympics and all of us in West Cork will be cheering you on. From Dáire.’ On and off the track Phil is making a difference.

RECORD HOLDER: Phil Healy holds the Irish women’s 100m record.

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THE WORLD STAGE: The Ballineen bullet finished just outside the medals in the final of the 400 metres at the 2021 European Indoor Athletics Championships in Poland, and Healy held her own with the best athletes in the world. This was a coming-of-age performance in a stacked field and she also ran a new PB of 51.94. HOMETOWN HERO: On a Monday night in July 2018, on home soil at the Cork City Sports at CIT and in front of a vocal home crowd, Phil (then 23) ran into the record books when she became the first Irish woman ever to run under 23 seconds for 200m. Her 22.99 was a new Irish record (since broken). NUMBER ONE: At the 2021 national championships, Phil and her number one rival, rising star Rhasidat Adeleke, produced one of the greatest races in Irish athletics. In the 200m women’s final, the two fastest women in Irish sport didn’t disappoint. Phil won by one hundredth of a second, 22.83, to win by inches from Adeleke. If not for the wind being above the legal limit, this would have been an Irish record. THE COMEBACK: In July 2019, just 12 weeks after she fractured her fifth metatarsal on a warmweather training camp in Malta, Phil lined up in the final of the women’s 200m at the World University Games in Naples. It was an incredible recovery, highlighting her strength, guts, stubbornness and competitiveness. She finished sixth in the final, but we all learned more about Phil the fighter. BREAKTHROUGH: When Phil, only 18 years old and finding new speed all the time, finished fourth in the 100m at the European Junior Athletics Championships in Rieti, Italy back in July 2013, that was the moment where the rising Bandon AC star realised that she has what it takes to compete at the highest levels. That was a huge confidence-booster.

6 Coach Shane McCormack has helped Phil Healy unlock her potential BY CATHAL DENNEHY

HE first time Shane McCormack came across Phil Healy – the athlete he developed into the fastest Irishwoman in history – was at a Munster athletics squad session, where the Wexford native was volunteering his vast coaching wisdom. ‘I always liked the cut of her jib,’ he says. ‘She always struck me as very focused, very diligent.’ At the time Healy was coached by Liz Coomey at Bandon AC, who developed her into a national underage sprint champion, one who announced herself on the international stage with a fourthplace finish in the 100m at the European U20 Championships in 2013. McCormack was friendly with Coomey and notes the importance of her role, saying she ‘doesn’t get enough kudos’ for producing the number of top-quality athletes she has. It wasn’t long after that European U20 final that Healy reached out to McCormack, asking if she would guide her in the years ahead. McCormack was a well-respected coach who, that summer, had helped David Hynes to a surprise national senior 100m title, but he had little experience at global level. ‘She took a gamble and it was four years of remote coaching,’ he says, with Healy soon enrolling in UCC. ‘At the time I saw a fast sprinter who had some technical issues, issues around her blocks.’ Healy’s college years were as turbulent as they are for most athletes, with setbacks and academic demands often impinging her progression. A nursing degree wasn’t an ideal fit for a high-level athlete and eventually she switched to IT, going on to complete a master’s degree in computing at Waterford IT. That allowed her to work in-person with McCormack from 2017 onwards and since then, her form has skyrocketed. In 2016 Healy had shot to fame internationally when staging a miraculous comeback on the final leg of the 4x400m at the Irish Universities Championships, a race McCormack only instructed her to run so she could ‘dip her toe’ in the 400m waters. Up until then she’d been a 100m and 200m runner, but a 53.58-second clocking over 400m in Belgium that summer told her she could have a future at the one-lap event. Her raw speed also made the indoor 400m a natural fit, but Healy had relatively weak speed endurance at the time

TAKING OVER TOKYO THE SOUTHERN STAR

THIS DREAM TEAM SHARES A NEED FOR SPEED ‘She’s a student of the sport, she understands the sport’ – Shane McCormack

RECORD-SETTER: Phil Healy and her coach Shane McCormack after she set the Irish women’s 100m record in Santry back in 2018. and narrowly missed the 2018 world indoor 400m final in Birmingham after fading in the home straight. ‘The 400 is not her natural environment and she couldn’t finish a race back then,’ says McCormack. ‘But of course she couldn’t finish a race – she hadn’t got the years of experience or the years of training done. It’s taken a while to get there but she’s definitely in a much better place now.’ One of the biggest challenges they faced came in April 2019 when Healy fractured her fifth metatarsal while walking down steps on a warmweather training camp in Malta. It was an injury that often requires three months’ rest, but a chink of light emerged when specialist Johnny McKenna told them she had fractured it in a good place so it could be healed in six weeks. McCormack

had Healy back in the gym two days later and she made it back on track for the World University Games in Naples that July, finishing sixth in the 200m final in 23.44. But by the time she got to the 2019 World Championships in Doha that September, her lack of training caught up with her, Healy running on empty as she bowed out in the 200m heats in 23.56. She started 2020 with intent, clocking an Irish indoor 200m record of 23.10 but when the Olympics were pushed back a year McCormack decided to give Healy a break from the typical training grind. ‘Phil is very driven and she’d been on the go since Euro juniors in 2013,’ he says. ‘She’s a student of the sport, she understands the sport, maybe too well. Sometimes it’s easier to coach someone not as clued in. She’s

a consummate professional with recovery, she does everything she’s meant to do and doesn’t leave a stone unturned.” Healy channelled that work ethic towards 2021 and started the year in flying form, breaking 52 seconds for the first time in Dublin in February before finishing fourth over 400m at the European Indoors in Torun, Poland. While her 200m Olympic qualification was always assured, given her world ranking, that race in Poland made McCormack realise she had a realistic shot at the 400. That was even more obvious in May when she blitzed a 51.50-second PB in Belfast. At the national senior championships last month, she knew a big run was needed in the 400m to move into a qualifying position for Tokyo and that’s exactly what she found, clocking 52.33 in strong winds to take victory. The following day she kept calm as chief rival Rhasidat Adeleke turned for home a metre or two in front in the 200m final, with Healy powering back over the final 50 metres to snatch gold in a blazing 22.83. ‘I thought the bend was because she was tired and I didn’t expect her to come back,’ says McCormack, ‘But she found something and I was seriously impressed. I had said to

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THE DREAM TEAM: Coach Shane McCormack has helped Ballineen bullet Phil Healy unlock her potential.

her: ‘If you get into a gun fight, you’re shoulder to shoulder, you have to keep your composure.’” Following the championships Healy secured a place in Tokyo in the 200m, 400m and mixed 4x400m, the first Irishwoman ever to qualify in three events. The relay will be first up on July 30th-31st, with the 200m heats and semi-finals on August 2nd and the 400m heats on August 3rd. It will mean a hectic week for Healy, and indeed McCormack, who will travel to Tokyo as part of the Irish team. ‘It’s the big dance, isn’t it?’ he says. ‘This is the peak.’ In Ireland, athletics survives and thrives off the hard work of volunteer coaches like McCormack, whose family and employer offer him the support he needs to commit so much time to the cause. ‘There’s a lot of people behind this,’ he says. ‘You put so much effort into it and you know the coaches in Ireland, you’re doing it for the grá, because you love the sport.’ They know they still have a job to do. No one wants to get to the biggest stage in sport and not walk away content with how you fared. But to actually be there, after an eight-year journey, feels a victory in itself. ‘From my perspective, it’s relief,” says McCormack. ‘Relief for her that her faith in me and her commitment to the sport has paid off, that she’s not going to look back and go, “I gave up so much and I didn’t get anything for it.” Phil would be aware of what she put on hold in her life, and now she’s going to be rewarded for that.’

TAKING OVER TOKYO THE SOUTHERN STAR

Phil is hardy. There’s a steel to her, a real determination Irish sprinter JOAN HEALY – big sister to Olympian Phil – tells us what makes her little sister so special

I wanted to play in our timber playhouse in the back garden but Phil wanted to be running around the fields

F THERE’S something in the water with the Skibbereen rowers, then there is something in the genes when it comes to us Healys and athletics. There’s a long history of running in our family. Our dad’s side would have been known as ‘the reathaí’, that’s Irish for runners. That’s where our speed comes from. Dad actually has a lot of All-Ireland medals in the 100m and 200m from competing at masters’ level; he started running when I was in my mid-teens and he was a regular on the podium. Our mom’s side is where our endurance comes from. Mom had cousins who went to America on scholarships for long-distance running. Phil has the ideal mixture of endurance and speed – and that’s one of the reasons she’s so fast and strong over 100m, 200m and 400m. I’m primarily made up of fast-twitch muscle fibres, and they help with sudden and more powerful bursts of energy. It’s why, too, that the 60m and 100m are my distances. I don’t go beyond them. Phil has a 50-50 mix of fast-twitch fibres and endurance, and has that aerobic capacity that allows here to reach out from 60m all the way up to 400m, and still be dominant. But her physical make-up is only one of the reasons that she has achieved all she has, and is now going to become an Olympian. Another reason is Phil’s stubbornness. Well, to be fair, there are strong streaks of stubbornness on both sides of our family and none of us have escaped it. She just won’t give up. Once she has a target – be it in athletics or with her academics or whatever it might be – she won’t stop until she achieves it. I’ve watched her in some training sessions where she empties the tank, is thrown over a bin and getting sick, and two minutes later she’s back out and starting another long rep. She’s hardy. There’s a steel in her, a determination that she’s always had. That comes from growing up on

COMPETITIVE: Joan Healy, right, beat her younger sister Phil to win the women’s 100m at the 2016 Irish Universities Championships in Santry. Both Healy sisters ran for UCC. INSET: BEST FRIENDS: Joan Healy and her younger sister Phil played together at home. the farm at home in Knockaneady, Enniskeane. We had a very country childhood. We were sent out in the morning and we didn’t come back in until we were hungry. We were always outside on the farm and up in the fields, on the tractor, picking stones, picking up hay bales (and making forts when we could), feeding calves, bedding cattle. Phil liked that side of it. She got her hands dirty more than I did. I wanted to play in our timber playhouse in the back garden but Phil wanted to be running around the fields. She just loved to work and that upbringing has stood to her. Still now, Philly – as mom calls her – loves work, but there’s a mischievous side to her, too. It was just Phil and myself for a while – there are only two years between us – until Diarmuid and Padraig came along. While Diarmuid and myself would be very alike, it’s Phil and Padraig who are always up to tricks, mostly at my expense. Phil and myself were always stuck together growing up, always joined at the hip and we were very close in our teenage years, but a small bit of

distance did appear then when we starting getting competitive with each other. Neither of us wanting to come off second best. It’s that sibling rivalry. I started in athletics first and things went well as a junior in the 60m and the 100m. I got to compete at European and World championships, but then injuries started to slow me down. Phil, and she’ll admit this herself, was a slow starter but when she was around 17 and 18 years of age, that’s when I noticed she had something about her. She was making finals, her times was dropping, she was selected on Irish senior teams. When she was 18, Phil won the 100m and 200m double at the 2013 All-Ireland schools’ championships in Tullamore – that was a big moment. Those championships are very competitive and a good barometer to judge where an athlete is at, and she was winning gold. People outside athletics don’t realise how hard it is to go from being a really successful junior athlete to becoming a successful senior, but Phil

took that leap in her stride. A huge part of her story is that she linked up her coach, Shane McCormack, the man with the plan. They work so well together. It’s the dream team. I’ve trained with them and they’ve been a huge help to my sprinting career as well. If Phil and myself were competitive with each other in her late teens, and that’s natural because we’re both competitive and stubborn, we’ve grown very close again in the last few years. (I have to share this story. In 2016 I was back running after a really bad quad injury and I was competing at the Irish University Championships, as was Phil. It was my first outdoor competition in many years and also my last inter-varsities. We went head to head in the 100m and I won. I couldn’t believe it. I was delighted and was on the way back. Then Phil went on to run that famous leg in the 4x400m relay final for UCC, the ‘from the depths of hell’ run, it went viral and my win was overshadowed! Thanks, Phil!) I’ve had more than my fair share of injury problems and Phil’s been a

huge help, both with her advice and encouragement. I wouldn’t be racing still today without her. Last year, from September until mid-December, I couldn’t train on the track after I was diagnosed with Plantar fasciitis in my foot. My 2021 season looked in big trouble, but then Phil stepped in. In April 2019 she broke the fifth metatarsal in her foot on a training camp in Malta ahead of the World University Championships in Naples that summer. She was millimetres away from surgery. This is where we all saw how strong Phil is mentally. Twelve weeks later to the day, she lined out in the 200m final at those championships. That was incredible. The mental energy that took was phenomenal, but that’s Phil. She’s stubborn. Her mind was set on competing at those championships and she got there. It’s what Phil – and Shane McCormack – learned on that rehab journey that she then shared with me when I had my injury problems last winter. I transferred a lot of my sessions to the watt bike, and her knowledge was huge. It’s the reason I got to the start line at the European Indoor Championships this year. Phil doesn’t leave me ever feel sorry for myself either. We have this just-get-on-with-it attitude at home, Phil more so than anyone else. I juggle work as a teacher and athletics, but Phil’s not having any of it. Stop complaining, she tells me. Stop making excuses. Yes, you have a full-time job but there are athletes who are raising children at the same time so just get on with it. There’s no filter there and that’s good, the way it should be. We’re all so proud of what Phil has achieved over the years, it’s been incredible to watch her rise from my little sister jumping off hay bales on the farm to becoming Ireland’s fastest woman and now an Olympian. We’d love to be there in Tokyo with her, but we won’t be. But we will be cheering her from home. Our Philly has reached the pinnacle.

• Joan Healy is an internationalclass sprinter and one of the fastest Irish women ever over 60m and 100m.

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TAKING OVER TOKYO THE SOUTHERN STAR

‘Paul has all the pieces of the jigsaw’

SIMPLY THE BEST: Paul O’Donovan is the greatest Irish rower ever.

(Photo: Seb Daly/Sportsfile)

Paul O’Donovan is a generational athlete – but what makes him so good? It’s time to find out

'I’m not rowing to get a big collection of BY KIERAN McCARTHY PAUL O’Donovan wants to get his hands on a gold medal at these Olympic Games – but he has already held an Olympic gold. His recollections of the day Great British rower Fred Scarlett visited Skibbereen Rowing Club are foggy. It was October 2002 and Paul was just eight years old. A lot has happened in between. ‘I do remember this day when we were very excited about a British rower coming to the rowing club, but I don’t actually remember holding any medal,’ Paul says – but we have the evidence that shows Paul, kitted out in a white Umbro Republic of Ireland polo shirt and matching shorts, with a gold medal draped around his neck. Gary was there, too. Scarlett won that gold medal at the

‘From my experience, there’s nearly a ceiling on how happy you can be from winning medals’ – Paul O’Donovan

THE ONE THAT I WANT: Gary (left) and Paul O’Donovan with their dad Teddy (far right) pictured with Great Britain Olympic gold medallist rower Fred Scarlett when he visited Skibbereen Rowing Club in October 2002. 2000 Olympics in Sydney as part of the victorious Great Britain eight. He called to the club in Skibb as a favour,

and Teddy O’Donovan, Paul and Gary’s dad, has always felt that moment resonated with his boys. Paul’s heroes,

however, were much closer to home. ‘Maybe for a short while afterwards you’re thinking about it (Scarlett’s visit) and dreaming of the Olympics, but you forget about it then. Our main focus became the Irish guys, Eugene Coakley and Timmy Harnedy from Skibbereen, who had been to the Olympics and made finals. Because they were more tangible to us, we took more of an interest in them,’ Paul explains. ‘We were like, “God, they only live over the road and they grew up in Skibbereen and trained in

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the rowing club and went to the same school as us”. That was more real for us. Although they didn’t win any (Olympic) medals, they came quite close and they were able to pass on some of their learning experiences. That was more beneficial than Fred Scarlett coming out one day to the rowing club.’ Paul wants to win Olympic gold in the Irish lightweight men’s double alongside Fintan McCarthy at these Tokyo Games. It would crown an incredible collection that already includes four World gold (two in the single and two in the double), two European gold (in the double) and, of course, an Olympic silver in 2016. There are many more World Cup medals, too, as well as his ‘pots’ from the national championships. But while he wants Olympic gold, that’s not what motivates him to get up and

TAKING OVER TOKYO THE SOUTHERN STAR

BY KIERAN McCARTHY HE ONLY turned 27 in April but already Paul O’Donovan is Ireland’s most successful rower. Most laud him as Ireland’s greatest rower of all time. There’s an argument to be had that he is one of the country’s greatest sportspeople. He is a generational athlete. ‘Paul is exceptional, he’s one of a kind,’ Eugene Coakley explains, and here’s a Skibbereen man who knows a thing or two about rowing. Coakley travelled to two Olympics (2000 and 2004) and raced in an A final of the lightweight men’s four at Athens ’04. He’s a rowing fanatic and knows the youngest O’Donovan brother well. Coakley is one of the Skibb rowers that a young Paul used to hound on the Ilen River, and now he has developed into the finest lightweight rower of his time. ‘Paul has the three pieces of the puzzle that every top sports star needs: physical, technical and mental,’ Coakley explains, before adding, ‘but a lot of us lose sight that sport is meant to be fun and that’s why we started in the first place, because it’s fun. Paul has fun on the water and in training. He enjoys it. He’s rowing because it’s fun and that’s important to remember.’ 2016 Olympic rower Claire Lambe agrees, pointing out that Paul’s enjoyment is what keeps him coming back for more. ‘Rowing has been a part of his life for so long, since he was a kid in Skibbereen, and here he is now, still enjoying it and having fun. He’s not rowing to collect medals, he’s rowing because he loves it and the success is a by-product, albeit a very nice one,’ Lambe says. Paul’s medal haul is incredible. Along with his older brother Gary he won Ireland’s first-ever Olympic rowing medal (silver) in 2016. He has won four World Rowing Championship gold medals, two in the lightweight single and two in the lightweight

‘Paul has the three pieces of the puzzle that every top sports star needs: physical, technical and mental’ – Eugene Coakley double. There are two gold medals at the Europeans in the double as well. He has snaffled up six medals of various colours at World Cup regattas, and there have been silver and bronze medals at Europeans as well. And all this between 2016 and now, while he didn’t race internationally last year. He’s done it in a single and in a double, and in the latter with different partners, Gary first and now Fintan McCarthy. Paul is a medal machine. Like Coakley says, he has all the pieces of the jigsaw: physical, technical and mental. ‘I think his best attribute is his mentality,’ Lambe says. ‘He pushes the boundaries to see what is possible. He would always end up doing more mileage than anyone else and he is able to do that bit more. He is mentally so tough and he always enjoys training and is happy to be in that environment and pushing himself to the limit.’ There are tales of the incredible mileage he did in Banyoles, Spain, on a training camp ahead of the 2017 World Championships. Morning and evening, he pushed himself more and more. Coach Dominic Casey was impressed by what he saw. It was quantity and quality, and he went to the Worlds in Florida that year and defended his lightweight men’s single title. ‘Mentally, he has it all. He can deal with the pressure and with the nerves, and he has huge experience now as well. Hopefully he gets the chance to race the Olympic final and if he does it won’t be any different to him racing some young fella down the river in Skibbereen,’ Coakley adds.

MEDAL HAUL: Paul O’Donovan with his bronze medal at the 2013 World Rowing U23 Championships in LinzOttensheim, Austria. The Skibbereen rower has amassed the most incredible medal collection in Irish rowing. Physically, he’s a beast. Gary O’Donovan has spoken before about the surge of power Paul brings to the boat. His current partner in the Irish lightweight double, Fintan McCarthy, says Paul operates at such a level that when you are trying to match that every day it just pushes you further. ‘Physiologically, Paul has what’s needed, he has a great engine and is phenomenally strong,’ Lambe explains. Coakley also feels Paul’s physiological make-up is key. ‘His lung capacity is incredible. I’m not sure of the exact numbers but they say the lung capacity of the general public is three and a half to four litres, whereas with Paul it’s said to be up around the high fives, maybe even six. That’s substantially more,’ he explains. ‘The more oxygen you get into your lungs, the more oxygen you get into

your blood, the more you can push yourself. The limiting factor in rowing is lactic acid, that’s created by a lack of oxygen so if you are getting more oxygen in, you’re pushing back the lactic acid to a bit later into the race. It is going to come, and he can deal with that. ‘If you look at a car, a two-litre car is going to be a lot faster than a one-litre car.’ Then there’s his technique – and who can criticise a rower that has amassed the titles that Paul has? ‘He has a long stroke so he is connected to the water at all times and that helps,’ Coakley explains. ‘People might say that he can do this or that different, but when you are looking at technique it comes down to the fundamentals. You might see people out there who look more stylish and they are sitting up more

at the back of the stroke, but the fundamental that Paul does well is the length of his stroke, and he has that aggression and connection to the water. ‘He has all the pieces of the jigsaw that make up a world-class athlete, and he’s having fun at the same time.’ Paul O’Donovan is the full package on and off the water, and his legacy on water and land will endure. He has raised standards, normalised winning and brought an expectancy. ‘His record is outstanding and maybe we don’t recognise it enough,’ Lambe adds. ‘There is no doubt that the medal won in Rio has contributed to the success we see now because it showed what is possible, and it showed what hard work and training can lead to. ‘He has a legacy that will go down in history.’

medals. I’m rowing because I enjoy it’ train every day, to push himself to find those gains that could make the difference. ‘There’s the rarity of the Olympic Games in that they only come around every four years and I have had only one opportunity to go for them,’ the Lisheen man says. ‘As a kid when you set out your aspirations, you’re always thinking of winning Olympic gold medals and all this type of thing. Every season when you’re planning ahead and setting your goals, you’d be like, “The big race is this, and I’d like to win it.” We’ve done that with all of the World championships and the Europeans as well, and the same with the last Olympics and this Olympics. We’ve always said we want to try and win the thing. ‘But then, day to day, that’s not really what’s motivating you. You’re not getting up every morning thinking,

“Olympic gold medal, I have to go and win that and if I don’t train hard, I won’t.” You’d lose your mind if you were thinking that every day. Mostly, what motivates us is just that we enjoy actually training every day, more often than not, anyway. ‘Then if training is getting a little bit hard, you might be like, “Maybe it’ll be worth it in the end if you win an Olympic gold medal.” If you’re having a tired day or something, maybe you might look at that then.’ The medals Paul has amassed already are scattered between home in Lisheen, his grandmother’s house in Ballincollig and in his student accommodation at UCC where he’s studying to become a doctor. They’re somewhere, he says, but not all together. He’s 27 years old and not remotely near that reflective stage of his rowing adventure. That day will

come, eventually. But rowing isn’t just about the medals. Success gives an injection of euphoria, but that wears off, so there needs to be more to keep Paul and rowing intertwined. And there is. ‘It’s always nice to win some medals but I’m not rowing to get a big collection of medals. I’m just rowing because I enjoy it,’ he says. ‘I did a bit of thinking there early on in the year when I had a bit of time. From my experience of winning World Championships and the Europeans, or even the last Olympic medal, there’s nearly a ceiling on how happy you can be from winning medals. For me, anyway, I don’t think it’s that much above the happiness you get from the stuff that happens randomly and makes you happy. ‘If I really didn’t enjoy rowing and just found it so hard and miserable – every day, day in, day out, every

training, if I just wasn’t enjoying it – then knowing the experience I’ve had from winning other medals, I don’t think it’d be worth that. ‘For me, certainly, as long as I’m enjoying the day-to-day stuff – doing the training and hanging out with the lads – then, the medals are a nice bonus on top of that if you can win some of them. But really, if you’re not enjoying the rest of the stuff, I don’t think it’s worthwhile to go chasing Olympic gold medals. Maybe it’s different for other people …’ Paul, though, is different to the majority. You don’t become one of Ireland’s greatest sportspeople

by following the pack. Instead, he has forged his own path. Hopefully, his crowning glory is to come.

GOLDEN WONDERS: Fintan McCarthy and Paul O’Donovan celebrate winning the lightweight men’s double A final at the 2021 European Championships.

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TAKING OVER TOKYO THE SOUTHERN STAR

PAUL’S PATH TO GREATNESS KIERAN McCARTHY charts Paul O’Donovan’s rise to the pantheon of sporting greats

ON THE WATER

It was the summer of 2002, a Sunday in July, when Teddy O’Donovan finally relented and took his sons, Gary (9) and Paul (8), on the River Ilen in a training boat ideal for beginners. That was their first time rowing. Teddy felt they were ready to learn how to row and he saw they were two naturals as well. They wore themselves out on the Ilen that day. Paul hasn’t left the water since.

1994 2002 1994 2008

ON THE WORLD STAGE

Nineteen years old by now and already the best of his age in Ireland, Paul was flexing his muscles on the world stage. At the 2013 U23 World Rowing Championships in Austria, he brought home a bronze medal in the lightweight single sculls. His collection was building. By now he had already finished fourth in the single at the 2011 juniors Worlds, too.

2013 2015

LISHEEN LEGENDS

Paul and Gary left Skibbereen that summer as two boys from Lisheen and they returned home as national heroes, international sports stars and Ireland’s first-ever Olympic rowing medallists (silver) following their heroics in the Irish men’s lightweight double at the Games in Rio. It was the most important moment in Irish rowing. Paul then went straight from Brazil to Rotterdam where he won gold in the lightweight single at the World Rowing Championships. Paul and Gary also won European gold that year. Incredible success.

WELSH WONDERS At the 2008 Home Internationals (a regatta

between Irish, English, Scottish and Welsh rowers) at Cardiff Bay, Paul (pictured right) took his first steps on the international stage. He was in an Irish quad with his brother Gary, best friend Shane O’Driscoll and a Waterford rower Barrick Parker. Paul was 14 and was up against U18s. Coached by his dad Teddy, the Irish quad won. Gold on his Ireland debut. That sparked the first of many bonfires back home at Kilkilleen Cross.

TICKETS TO RIO At the 2015 World Rowing Championships in France, Paul and Gary qualified the Irish men’s lightweight double for the 2016 Olympics. This is a significant moment because what has happened since can be traced back to the B final at these Worlds when they finished fifth – and eleventh overall – to take the final Olympic qualification spot up for grabs. It was tight: they beat the Greek crew by 0.28 of a second. Fine margins, but they had their tickets to Rio.

THE AMERICAN DREAM Back in the lightweight single for the 2017 World Rowing

2017 2018

Championships in Florida (Gary was ill so they couldn’t compete in the double), Paul glistened under the Sarasota sun as he successfully defended his World title in style. He showed his trademark power and strength to blow the field away in the A final and he won by more than three seconds, as his rivals simply had no answer. A back-to-back world champion.

FOUR IN A ROW His partner in the boat was different for the 2019 World Rowing

2019

DEVASTATINGLY DOMINANT

In an Olympic year, Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy have been utterly dominant over the rest of the crews in the men’s lightweight double. No one has even got close to them. At April’s European Rowing Championships in Varese, they romped to gold with almost two seconds to spare over Germany in second. Then, at World Cup II in Lucerne, Paul and Fintan won, again. Another gold. That’s why these Skibb men are rated as odds-on favourites for gold at this summer’s Olympics.

arrived into the world in April ’94 that he would grow up to become the greatest rower Ireland has ever produced. Not only that, but also one of Ireland’s most successful sportspeople. The water was in Paul’s DNA from the start as his dad, Teddy, grew up in Lisheen, not far from the water and had rowed himself.

2016

GOLDEN WONDERS

Paul made it three World gold medals in a row when he partnered Gary to glory in the Irish lightweight double at the 2018 World Rowing Championships in Bulgaria. That was Paul’s first World gold in the double. After making hard work of their semi-final, the Skibb men got their tactics right in the final, made their move in the final quarter and cruised home. By the end, it was dominant. Another medal for Paul’s growing collection.

WELCOME, PAUL Little did anyone know then but when Paul Timothy O’Donovan

Championships – Fintan McCarthy had replaced Gary – but, with Paul in the boat, the end result in Austria was the same: gold. Paul and Fintan (pictured below, Paul on right) also qualified the boat for the Tokyo Olympics, and this was Paul’s fourth consecutive World gold medal. That’s a staggering accomplishment.

2021

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TAKING OVER TOKYO THE SOUTHERN STAR

How Gary and Paul’s historic 2016 Olympic silver medals created a new culture in Irish rowing BY KIERAN McCARTHY

ITTING in the RTÉ studio on live TV, Neville Maxwell couldn’t hold back the tears after Gary and Paul O’Donovan’s historic silver medal success at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. A two-time Olympic rower, the Galway man knew – and knows – better than most just how important that moment was for Irish rowing. Before the two Lisheen lads came along, Ireland had never won an Olympic rowing medal, but Gary and Paul changed all that. That one glorious result raised standards on and off the water. It transformed the sport locally, nationally and internationally. Took rowing into corners of society that it had never thought were possible or accessible, engaged with a new fanbase, raised its profile to heights that had never seemed imaginable. Rowing hasn’t looked back since. That silver medal at the Rio Olympics was a crucial turning point for Irish rowing. Two charming Skibb rogues – Gary was 23 years old, Paul was 22 – changed everything, including their own lives. ‘Gary and Paul broke the glass ceiling and they showed what is possible,’ explains Neville Maxwell, who is a Director of Rowing Ireland and the Chairman of the High Performance Committee. ‘Irish rowing had won lots of World gold, silver and bronze medals over the years, but this was the Olympic medal we wanted. ‘It made people realise that this could be done, that Irish rowers can win Olympic medals. It gave an extra belief to people that this could be achieved. ‘It was a huge, huge moment for Irish rowing.’ Crucially, Rowing Ireland didn’t sit still. Instead, they capitalised on the success and the profile of the most famous brothers in world rowing. Off the water, Gary and Paul became their own brand. Fame followed. The rowers who became celebrities, on the back of their Rio interviews and heroics, appeared on talk shows like The Graham Norton Show. They had their own documentary, Pull Like A Dog. They became pin-ups and, more importantly, role models. And all the time raising the profile of Skibbereen Rowing Club, their hometown of Skibb and Irish rowing. On the water, their success continued at World level, and success

THE SILVER MEDALS THAT TRANSFORMED ROWING

SILVER BULLETS: Gary and Paul O’Donovan celebrate winning those historic silver medals at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

‘Gary and Paul broke the glass ceiling and they showed what is possible’ – Neville Maxwell followed for more and more Irish rowers, too. ‘The Olympic silver medals led to a huge psychological change in mindset. It showed it can be done and Irish rowers now know it can be done as

well – that’s very important,’ Maxwell says. ‘The rest of the rowers thought that if Gary and Paul can do it, so can we, as long as we are shown how and as long as we buy into it. ‘It has helped to create a culture in Irish rowing, a culture of winning and a culture of belief that our rowers can win the big medals. Just look at the results in the last few years, they back that up.’ The appointment of Antonio

Maurogiovanni as Rowing Ireland High Performance Director in late 2017 was another part of the jigsaw. The former Italian Olympic rower has taken this culture to the next level, Maxwell says, while also developing Irish heavyweight rowing. Gary and Paul’s 2016 success came in the lightweight category that was set for the chop as an Olympic event after the Tokyo Games. In late 2020, lightweight rowing received a surprise and welcome Olympic

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reprieve, for now, and it will be part of the 2024 Games in Paris. In the last few years, Rowing Ireland developed its heavyweight wing – and four of the record six boats competing at the Tokyo Games will be heavyweight boats. That’s progress. Those four boats – women’s single, men’s double scull, women’s four and women’s pair – all harbour genuine medal prospects. Sanita Puspure in the women’s single is a two-time World champion. Ronan Byrne and Phil Doyle in the men’s double scull captured World silver in 2019. Irish rowers, not our boxers anymore, carry the country’s best hopes of Olympic medals at these Games – and two men from Skibbereen have shown that Irish rowers can win Olympic medals. ‘The worst thing that could have happened is that we didn’t drive on after we won the medals in 2016 and create a system around it to make that repeatable. But we have built on it, created a culture and environment where our rowers now have the confidence and ability to compete for the big prizes. Now we have medal prospects in a lot of boats,’ Neville Maxwell says. There are many, many parts to the Irish rowing jigsaw, and key are those Olympic silver medals in 2016. They had a transformative effect. Whatever Tokyo brings, and future Olympics, Gary and Paul were the first Irish rowers ever to win an Olympic medal, and that changed everything. It created rowing superstars. Not just here at home, but internationally. Gary and Paul raised the profile of Irish and Skibbereen rowing. Skibb town, too. A minority sport had more popularity than ever before. It also showed that rowing is not a sport exclusive to the elite, confined to Oxford and Cambridge crews in a Boat Race. These were two country boys who are very relatable. The O’Donovan brothers became bigger than their sport, but that’s good news for rowing as, first and foremost, they are rowers who still compete. ‘They burst on the scene at Rio in 2016 and they went into a superstar status that rowers rarely do,’ well-known rowing commentator and former Olympic rowing gold medallist Martin Cross explains. ‘Outside of someone like Sir Steve Redgrave with five Olympic medals, this doesn’t happen. Non-rowers would know about the O’Donovans, which is highly unusual.’ And it all comes back to those Olympic silvers Gary and Paul brought home from the 2016 Games in Rio: the medals that transformed rowing, raised standards, created a culture where nothing is impossible and showed that Irish rowers can win the sport’s greatest prizes. Not bad for two lads from Lisheen, eh.

THE SOUTHERN STAR

Fintan McCarthy has proved to everyone – including himself – that he deserves his place in the dominant Irish lightweight men’s double. KIERAN McCARTHY spoke to the Skibb man ahead of the Olympics

were broken up, but there’s no room for sentiment here. ‘It is brutal because you know how you would feel in that position, but I was really proud of myself and all the work that had paid off,’ Fintan says. Now he had his seat in the fastest lightweight men’s double in the world and alongside the best lightweight men’s sculler. There are only three years between Fintan and Paul, but there was, and is, a gulf in experience. Time for Fintan to step up.

READY TO ROW: Skibbereen rower Fintan McCarthy is ready to make a splash at the Olympic Games. (Photo: Seb Daly/Sportsfile)

INTAN McCarthy is not a fan of the unknown. He likes organisation, to know what’s happening and when. On race days he plans out his own timetable, detailed to the minute. That structure gives him security and confidence. Ahead of training camps Fintan makes a checklist. Again, it’s comprehensive. Nothing is left to chance. One by one, as he packs, the list is ticked off. Tick. Tick. Tick. The beautiful monotony only a rower understands, endures and enjoys. His twin brother Jake, a few minutes older and also a world-class rower, is the opposite. ‘I just look at Fintan’s list, see what he needs and throw a few things into my suitcase,’ Jake laughs. ‘Everyone has their own way of doing things – and Fintan likes to plan, days, weeks and months in advance. It works. He makes sure he misses nothing. If you don’t eat or drink enough, it could be detrimental, so it’s critical to know what you have to do, need to do and when. Fintan covers all the bases.’ But even with his forwardplanning, not even Fintan could have foreseen what has unfolded over the past two years. In early 2019, Fintan’s ambition – and Jake’s, too – was to force his way into the Irish lightweight men’s double that was owned by the O’Donovan brothers, Gary and Paul, who had won World gold in 2018. It seemed a big ask. Gary and Paul, from the same parish of Aughadown, as the McCarthy twins, were the Irish lightweight men’s double. They held those seats since 2015. Won Ireland’s first-ever Olympic rowing medal in Rio 2016. Became bigger than rowing itself, but kept winning. They were the best in the world. No-one was good enough to oust either of them. But Fintan, like Jake, wanted a seat in that boat. Ideally, together, like they’ve always been.

*** ‘Rowing has definitely brought Jake and myself a lot closer together,’ Fintan (24) reflects. ‘We are really good friends now. ‘Go back to when we were younger we were always at each other and fighting, and we didn’t have a lot in common until we started rowing together. That’s when we found some common ground.’ Obviously, they have always been close. They’re twin brothers. They finish each other’s sentences. There’s a competitiveness there, too. It was Fintan, when he was 15 years old, who started rowing first, a full year before Jake who then wanted what

OUT ON HIS OWN: Fintan McCarthy won a bronze medal in the lightweight men’s single scull at the 2020 European Rowing Championships.

‘I am trying to be as good as Paul in the boat, and he is the best in the world’ – Fintan McCarthy his brother had. 'I'd usually be going soccer and GAA training but when Fintan started training more than me I didn't like it too much!', Jake told the Star before. Before long, both were hooked. For Fintan, rowing just fitted him. Soccer didn’t. Neither did Gaelic football. In his own words, he was terrible, to the extent that he told Ilen Rovers he was U10 when he was actually U12 so he wouldn’t have to play with his own age group. With rowing – and Skibbereen Rowing Club – it was different from the start. ‘We all have a running joke, that it’s all the rejects from other sports that end up in the rowing club,’ Fintan smiles. ‘It’s not that I wasn’t sporty, but I hadn’t found anything that I liked or was good at, so when I finally did find rowing it was motivating because I could see that I could get better and how I could get better. That’s what brought out the competitiveness then because I knew that I could be good and I wanted to show people I could be good.’ Quite soon, two brothers from Aughadown were making waves on the water with Skibbereen Rowing Club, and that has a familiar ring to it. By that stage, the early noughties, Paul O’Donovan was already the best junior sculler in Ireland and had finished fourth in the single at the 2011 Junior Worlds. Fintan was at a different stage in his development as a rower. ‘What was different for me is that

with rowing there were people telling you “you’re good”, and I hadn’t had that in any other sport before,’ he explains. ‘There were people in the club winning championships so we knew it was the place to be if you wanted to be good at rowing. When you have those people telling you “oh wow, that was a good score on the erg” or “you looked good in the single today”, that really spurs you on to get more out of it. It’s motivating that way.’ With both Fintan and Jake rowing, the twin brothers from Foherlagh, just north of Kilcoe Church, had a shared interest. The same passion. More to relate to and talk about. They’ll admit they’re obsessed. Even now, they live together in Ovens, a ten-minute drive from the National Rowing Centre in Inniscarra. Two more Tokyo Olympic rowers, Aoife Casey and Margaret Cremen, live in the same house. Fintan and Jake just can’t switch off from rowing when they’re home. It’s rowing, rowing, rowing. Again, the monotony only a rower understands and enjoys. Rowing brought them closer together. And success followed. *** On The Southern Star Sport edition of July 23rd, 2016, a photo of Fintan and Jake dominates the front page. They had won the intermediate men’s double scull at that year’s Irish Rowing Championships at the National Rowing Centre. That was an historic weekend for many reasons. That was the weekend when Skibbereen Rowing Club, after winning 13 national titles, officially became the most successful rowing club in the country, overhauling Neptune. Skibb now had top spot all to themselves. They still do. It was also the weekend that Fintan and Jake won their first national

FINTAN IS THE MAN WITH THE PLAN title together. A flag-in-the-ground moment in Fintan’s journey. ‘I had won the senior quad the day before the intermediate double and that was my first win, that was with Shane O’Driscoll, Mark O’Donovan and Kenneth McCarthy. That was the Saturday, and then Jake and I won the inter double on the Sunday,’ Fintan explains. ‘I had been at the World U23 Championships the year before but I had never won a national championship before 2016, even at junior level, so it was huge for me to get the first pot in the bag. It was even better to win it with Jake that year.’

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TAKING OVER TOKYO

That was the summer that Gary and Paul O’Donovan won Olympic silver medals at the Rio Games. That was another key moment in Fintan’s story. He was in the Paragon Bar in Skibbereen town on Friday, August 12th, 2016: the day that transformed Irish rowing. He watched his clubmates break through the glass ceiling and win Ireland’s first-ever Olympic rowing medals. Fintan was 19 at the time, preparing for the upcoming World U23s in Rotterdam. It showed Fintan what was possible. He trained the same as Gary and Paul, with the same coach, Dominic Casey, on the same river in the same club. If they

can do, I can do it. Still, in a sport where fractions of a second decide legacies, Fintan had ground to make up if he wanted what Gary and Paul had. It’s a hard trek from base camp to the summit, but he was buoyed by what he was seeing in his own improvements. The Cork Regatta in June 2018 stands out. ‘That was our last year as U23s, Jake and I, and we were selected for the World U23s in the double. We had a race against Gary and Paul at Cork Regatta and they only beat us by a second. We had led them for two thirds of the race, that was definitely a big one,’ Fintan recalls.

‘We had training sessions where we would have kept up but obviously they would have been faster than us. It became a case of “Oh, I only have this much to go” whereas when we were younger they were hammering us.’ Then in 2019 there was a change in the Irish lightweight men’s double. Gary fell behind after suffering a hand injury early in the year. Fintan, flying in Irish training and trials, passed the Olympic medallist out – as well as his brother Jake – and took a seat in the boat, alongside Paul. That was the changing-of-the-guard moment. The O’Donovan brothers

*** From the start, Paul and Fintan in the double just worked. In their first regatta together, World Rowing Cup II in Rotterdam in July 2019, they won silver. Since then, and in the three international regattas they’re competed in together, they have won every single race, be it a heat, A/B semi-final or A final. Ten race wins in a row. Three golds. Devastatingly dominant. Those three regattas yielded World gold and Olympic qualification in 2019, European gold and World Rowing Cup II gold this year. Now, the teenager who watched Paul win Olympic silver in 2016 is gunning for gold alongside him at the Tokyo Games. Jake, who was also in the running for the seat in the Irish double before a back injury suffered in early 2020 dashed his chances, isn’t surprised to see Fintan in his current position. ‘At the start Fin was never the fittest or the strongest, but he was able to move the boat well and go fast. He has always had that ability to feel the boat and move it. Technically, he’s very good,’ Jake explains. ‘He got every ounce of efficiency out of what he had, and now he is fitter and stronger, one of the strongest lightweights around. Combine that with what he had before, it’s pretty phenomenal.’ The 2021 version of Fintan, now 24 years old, is fitter, faster and stronger than what we’ve seen before. He’s broader, too, filling his frame. He’s a powerful unit. The unseen hard work is paying off. ‘He has put on a good bit of lean muscle mass which is important to the boat. You want to have as much muscle mass as possible but at the same time too much fat will slow you down. That’s why lean muscle mass is important because you don’t have any extra muscle mass weighing you down when you are on the water. He is up there with the strongest and fittest lightweight rowers in the world now,’ explains Jake. It helps, too, that Fintan is in the boat alongside the top lightweight men’s rower in the world. *** Paul O’Donovan has taken Fintan to places, mentally and physically, he never thought he could go. But that’s what life is like when you’re sharing a boat with a four-time world champ who is the best in the business. Fintan wants to hold his own in the double – and he is. He doesn’t want to be pulled around the rowing course

MADE IN SKIBB: Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy have been unbeatable in the Irish men’s lightweight double recently.

‘Fintan has put on a good bit of lean muscle mass which is important to the boat’ – Jake McCarthy by Paul, he wants to move the boat faster with Paul. ‘He is at such a level that when you are trying to match that every day it just pushes you further,’ Fintan explains. ‘I am trying to be as good as him in the boat, and he is the best in the world. It’s not that I need to prove anything to Paul, but I want to make sure that I’m not slowing things down because we know that together we can be really fast. That pushes me in training to make sure it’s not just Paul’s unrealness that is the reason we’re doing well. ‘We’ve formed a good relationship in the boat, and, Jesus, he has pushed me to new levels, training wise. I don’t think I could have done the training I have this summer if I wasn’t sitting behind him.’ The results speak for themselves. Ahead of Tokyo, they are World and European champions, and they are the lightweight men’s double everyone else has to beat. They are gold medal favourites, too. Their rivals must be wondering how do we beat the Irish. That brings its own expectations, but these Skibbereen diamonds aren’t weighed down by pressure. There’s a grit and hardiness to Skibb rowers, and the simplicity they employ also helps. Keep it simple, like their coach Dominic Casey preaches. ‘At this stage there is a bit of an expectation but I don’t pay much attention to that,’ Fintan says. ‘We still have to go out and do it. If anything, it makes it a bit simpler. If we go out and do X, Y and Z, do what we have been doing and get a little better here and a litter better there, we should have a good chance of winning – and that is nice. At the same time, you don’t know what will happen between now and then. Anything could happen. Even on the day. It’s focussing on the day to day, and whatever happens is meant to happen, whether we win or not. ‘Obviously, this is my first Olympics but our approach has worked so far. I haven’t bigged up any race that

much. Even at home during trials I have been very clear on what needs to happen in a race and what I need to do to make the boat go fast. I focus on that rather than the occasion or the result.’ Ominously for their challengers, Fintan feels the best is yet to come for the Irish double. They missed out on last year in the boat because of Covid and Fintan hopped into the single scull and Paul focussed on his college studies, so they’ve only been back together since this year, yet they’re still dominant. Worth noting that in the single scull in 2020, Fintan won bronze at the European Rowing Championships, highlighting he can shine on his own. It was also an extra experience. But now it’s all about moving that double faster than ever before. ‘I think we can put out a better performance than we have done in the last few regattas. We definitely stepped on a lot between the Europeans and the World Cup regatta, and we have had more time then we did between those two races.’ He takes confidence from the training they’ve done. They’ve trained really bloody hard, he stresses. They have an incredible body of work done and they are as prepared as they can be for the Games. They’re still finding more speed and they’ll hit Tokyo in top gear. There’s confidence there, too, from their races together. They can win from the front or coming from behind. They row to race, and race to win. It’s been a whirlwind few years for Fintan. Surreal is the word he reaches for. There was a stage when he found it hard to believe how far he has come in such a short period, but now he knows he deserves the success he’s enjoying. He has earned it. It was a hard slog, but there’s a strange satisfaction in the pain and hurt that rowers are drawn to. Training and racing with Paul has taken that pain to a whole new level, but Fintan hasn’t baulked. Instead, he has stepped up and made the best lightweight double boat in the world even better. That takes someone special. Mannerly, polite and pleasant on the outside, the beast within him has been unleashed. And now he’s gunning for gold in Tokyo to crown an extraordinary rise. Perhaps it was part of his grand plan after all.

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TAKING OVER TOKYO THE SOUTHERN STAR

Former World and European rowing champion MARK O’DONOVAN – from Skibbereen – explains what makes coach Dominic Casey such an influential figure in Irish rowing

ERE’S a story I have told before. It’s about Dominic Casey. Back in early 2017 we were on an Ireland training camp in Seville. It was the second last day of a three-week camp – and I was physically shattered, fit for the bed. I was sharing a room with Shane O’Driscoll and we were together in the Irish lightweight men’s pair at the time; that was the start of our golden year together. Thrown on our beds, we were exhausted. Barely a word spoken between the two of us, and that said it all. Then Dominic walks in. ‘One more session.’ ‘Ah Jesus, Dominic, we’re wrecked. We can’t.’ ‘Come on, come on, come on,’ he said, ‘one more session.’ There was back and forth for a good bit. In the end, we relented. He got us on the water. We were out there for at least 90 minutes and it was the best session of the camp. We went from thinking we couldn’t do a single stroke to pulling the best strokes of the camp. That was some feeling. We thought the well was empty, but Dominic showed us it wasn’t, that we had more to give. As a coach, he instils a belief in his athletes. It really is that simple. We follow him because we believe in him. We did what he said. You either fly and die or you fly and win it. More often than not, we won it. There are a lot of myths around Dominic and I can see why. Here’s a man from Skibbereen, with blood in his water and who grew up on the River Ilen, who talks fast and in his own code, and who has enjoyed great success with Skibbereen Rowing Club first and now, since 2016, as the lightweight coach with Rowing Ireland. He’s not a man for interviews or the spotlight, he keeps his answers brief, so in some ways he’s an enigma, an unknown variable in Ireland’s rowing success, but a key part of the jigsaw. He was named World Rowing’s Coach of the Year in 2018. He probably didn’t like going out to Berlin for the awards because he missed training. He just wants to drive on. Next training session, next race. Next, next, next. He has the passion for rowing. It’s all about how can he make his athletes row faster? How can he improve the club? (Like the time he sent us into the secondary school in Skibb to round up new members to come out and join the club, but he didn’t say it as polite as that!) It’s a constant quest to get better – but what he does better than any other coach is he keeps it simple.

COACH CASEY: Dominic Casey has enjoyed unprecedented success as a coach with both Skibbereen Rowing Club and Ireland.

WE FOLLOW COACH CASEY BECAUSE WE BELIEVE IN HIM

He puts the responsibility and ownership back on the athletes. Over the years there were races at regattas, whether it was with Skibb or Ireland, and we might not have been too sure about how we’d do. His advice was simple. Straight to the point. He doesn’t waste his words. ‘Go out there, as hard as ye can and fucking win it, nothing stopping ye.’ Dominic keeps it simple – that’s very important. He doesn’t over complicate things. He is also a coach who manages, and he manages people better than anyone else. When he was lightweight coach with Ireland, that’s what I needed at that stage of my career rather than being told what to do or how to do it. Dominic manages you and lets you think about what you are doing. It’s all about having an input and making sure that your athletes are smart and able to think for themselves rather than being told what to do and when to do it and how high to jump. Out in a race we are on our own and Dominic isn’t in the boat. His work is done then, so his athletes need to be able to make their own decisions. He puts the responsibility and ownership back on the athletes. I like that. We had to think for ourselves. We’re not robots. Another reason why Dominic has excelled as a coach is his ability to take advice on board. He listens to what the athlete says and he’s very adaptable to change. If we wanted to change our training time and push it an hour back, he’d listen to the reasons why and let us have an input. That creates a trust and a bond, and we knew that we had Dominic in our

BEST IN THE WORLD: Skibbereen rower Mark O’Donovan - and his club-mate Shane O’Driscoll - were World and European champions in the lightweight men’s pair in 2017. corner. And once he is in your corner he will fight for you. If you are under his wing and he is coaching you, he will support you as much as he can, and give you all the tools and advice you need to make the best out of your talent. It’s up to the athlete then. He won’t spoon-feed you. A good coach should always be open to be questioned – and he is. If he doesn’t have the answers, he’ll try and find them. It’s the small details, too. I hold a Masters in Sports Performance from the University of Limerick and I specialise in strength and conditioning. That’s a passion of mine. And Dominic listens to the science. He might be old-school when you think he rowed himself in the 1980s – in fairness, he won eight national senior titles – and he started

coaching in the early 1990s, but he’s always listening and learning. When I was rowing for Ireland, we worked with Caroline McManus, who is now a performance scientist with High Performance Sport New Zealand, and then I would have worked with Trevor Woods, an exercise physiologist who is still working with the team. Two great brains. Dominic is very good at taking on board suggestions from the science side of sport and what they advise on how to make a particular session better. You can either spend all your money on one session or you could spread it out to get whatever type of gains you are looking for. Again, he is open to ideas and input, and not one of those coaches who are my-way-orthe-highway cowboys. I was a full-time rower with Ireland

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for over six years, from 2014 to early 2020, and Dominic was my coach there. He coached me before that in Skibbereen. We all developed together, us as rowers and Dominic as a coach. And we learned off each other, too. My own rowing days are behind me now, but, like so many athletes at home in Skibb and with Ireland, I’m grateful for his role and input over the years. We had some great times, and Dominic was always there in the background.

• Mark O’Donovan from Poundlick in Skibbereen is a former World and European champion in the lightweight men’s pair, alongside his Skibb club-mate Shane O’Driscoll. In 2017, they dominated this event at world level and won every regatta.

TAKING OVER TOKYO

The Skibb super sub sprung from the bench in Beijing 08 BY KIERAN McCARTHY SPARE A thought for Gary O’Donovan and Lydia Heaphy. Here are two world-class rowers who travel to these Olympics as the subs for the lightweight men’s and women’s doubles respectively, but the odds are they won’t get on the water. It’s a challenging situation, more mentally than physically. They’ve put in the same work as the rowers in their boats, but don’t get the reward. Richard Coakley knows how they feel. The Skibbereen rower – the club’s third Olympian – was in the same situation for the 2008 Beijing Games. He was one of the fastest single scullers in Ireland at that time and was named as the sub for the Irish lightweight men’s four that included Richard Archibald, Paul Griffin, Cathal Moynihan and Gearoid Towey. Richard wasn’t the first Skibbereen rower to travel to an Olympics as the spare. His older brother Eugene was in the same position for the 2000 Sydney Games and treated it as a learning experience; he was back at the Olympics four years later, this time in the boat and reached the A final. Timmy Harnedy was a sub for the lightweight four at the 2004 Athens Games and has said before he approached it as a holiday. Heading to Beijing in 2008 as the sub, Richard, then 25 years old, felt his chances of getting to compete were slim. He kept himself ticking over, though. He watched on as the Irish lightweight men’s four finished last in their heat, won their repechage and then finished fourth in their A/B semi-final. All that was left was the B final; that race when rowers just go through the motions to a certain degree as they’ve missed out on the big dance, the medal race. Back at the apartment he was staying in with Alan Martin, the sub for the Irish men’s heavyweight four,

TOP CLASS: Lydia Heaphy is the sub for the Irish lightweight double.

Richard got a phone call he wasn’t expecting: Gearoid Towey wasn’t feeling great, there was a stomach bug doing the rounds and Richard was drafted in for the B final. ‘I thought it was unlikely I’d get to race but with four people there was a small chance that I might get called up,’ Richard recalls. ‘For most rowers, racing the B final is the last thing they want to do when they have missed out on the A final, but for me it was my one race at the Olympics and I wanted to take everything in and enjoy the experience.’ From the outside looking in – even his apartment was based away from the Olympic Village – Richard found himself sitting in the number two seat in the B final at an Olympics. ‘Physically, it was one of the hardest races I ever did and was a real shock to the system,’ he says, as Ireland lined up in lane three, Italy and Australia on one side, China and the USA on the other. ‘I remember really struggling in the last 500 metres and then coming in to the grandstand and thinking I need to savour this atmosphere and that helped me hang on for the last sprint.’ Richard and Ireland finished fourth in the B final and tenth overall at the 2008 Olympics. He got to compete at the Games, but he has seen it from the side of a sub, too. ‘You definitely feel a bit of an outsider being the sub and even though it’s a great honour to be part of the Olympics it’s bittersweet when you’re so close, but still might not get to compete,’ Richard explains. ‘It’s definitely very hard to stay motivated leading up to the Games when there’s a good chance that you won’t be racing. You’re so used to training hard every day that in some ways you can just keep ticking over out of habit and just take it one day at a time. ‘Physically, it’s not too bad when the training volume isn’t as high just before the Olympics. Mentally, though, is the hard part when it’s easy to lose focus and motivation when you might not get to race. ‘But remember, too, anything can happen, especially this year with Covid.’ In Gary O’Donovan and Lydia Heaphy, the

S UPER SUBS

THE SOUTHERN STAR

IT highlights the strength of Irish lightweight rowing when two world-class rowers like Gary O’Donovan and Lydia Heaphy can’t get in the boats, but they are ideal replacements if needed. GARY O’DONOVAN – A man who needs no introduction, the 2016 Olympic silver medallist is the reserve for the Irish lightweight men’s double, and what a worldclass athlete Ireland have to call on if needed. The 28-year-old Skibbereen rower is a former World and European champion in the double, and has made waves in the lightweight single this year to keep himself in the best shape possible. At both the 2021 European Rowing Championships and World Rowing Cup II in May Gary finished just outside the medals in fourth place. Of course, he is disappointed to not be in the double for this Games but, the ultimate pro, he has kept himself in the best possible shape just in case he is needed.

SUPER SUB: Richard Coakley travelled to the 2008 Beijing Olympics as a sub but was called into action for the B final.

‘Even though it’s a great honour to be part of the Olympics it’s bittersweet when you’re so close, but still might not get to compete’ – Richard Coakley Irish lightweight doubles have topclass back-ups. It highlights how strong Irish rowing is right now when the Skibb man and the Leap woman are the subs. Gary won an Olympic silver medal alongside Paul at the 2016 Games and is a former World and Eu-

ropean champion in the lightweight men’s double while Lydia recently won a silver medal – her first medal at senior international level – at World Rowing Cup II in Lucerne in May. It’s worth remembering the effort they’ve put in, too.

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LYDIA HEAPHY – The Leap woman is the reserve for the Irish lightweight women’s double of Aoife Casey and Margaret Cremen, and she is coming off the back of her best-ever result: a silver medal in the lightweight women’s single sculls at World Rowing Cup II in Lucerne in May. That showed that Lydia can hold her own with the best in the world. She has taken great confidence from that result as it reassured her she has what it takes to hold her own with the very best. Lydia also finished sixth in the A final at this year’s Europeans, too. In 2020 she won won gold, alongside Cliodhna Nolan, in the women’s lightweight pair at the European U23 Championships. Only 23 years old, UCC student Lydia is getting better and better.

TAKING OVER TOKYO THE SOUTHERN STAR

THE SKIBB HEAVYWEIGHT MAKING HER PRESENCE FELT

ON THE WORLD STAGE: Emily Hegarty will compete with the Irish women’s four crew at the Games in Tokyo. (Photo: Seb Daly/Sportsfile)

Emily Hegarty is the first heavyweight Olympic rower in the history of Skibbereen Rowing Club. That’s a milestone moment. KIERAN McCARTHY tells her story

HE might not realise it now but Emily Hegarty is a trailblazer. Her rowing story is a ground-in-the-flag moment for Skibbereen Rowing Club that can inspire and influence the next generation. Emily is the first – and only – heavyweight Olympian in a club that’s history and success is backboned by lightweight rowers. Every other Skibbereen rowing Olympian has sat in a lightweight boat. Eugene Coakley. Timmy Harnedy. Richard Coakley. Gary O’Donovan. Paul O’Donovan. Fintan McCarthy. Aoife Casey. Lydia Heaphy. Coach Dominic Casey is over the lightweight group with Rowing Ireland.

Emily’s inspirations in the club, Orla Hayes and Denise Walsh, are lightweights, too. But then there’s Emily: the heavyweight rower. This is her playground. This is where she is making waves. In rowing, there are weight limits on lightweights. For lightweight men, they must weigh under 72.5kg or be part of a 70kg crew average. For lightweight women, they must weigh below 59kg or an average crew weight of 57kg. Above those weights sits the heavyweight class. That’s where Emily has found her home. ‘To be honest, when I was growing up it’s something I was a bit nervous about,’ the 22-year-old Skibb woman says. ‘When I was younger Skibbereen was predominantly lightweight and not a huge amount of heavyweight rowers came out of the club. ‘I’m glad now that there won’t be any need for girls to be nervous about going for heavyweight. ‘I wouldn’t be an exceptionally huge person at all. I am the shortest person in our boat. But I would like to think that this would encourage young girls coming up that not being a lightweight isn’t a bad thing.’ Emily’s story is an important one for young girls and boys. Here’s a young woman from Mohonagh in Aughadown that is flying the Skibbereen flag in a heavyweight boat at an Olympics. It’s not an overnight success story, though. This was years in the planning. *** Emily didn’t plan on having an 18th birthday party in August 2016. It was weeks out from the World Rowing Junior Championships in Rotterdam and they had her full attention. A party would get in the way of training, but her mom Mary and older sister Alice couldn’t let it pass. They organised Emily’s surprise 18th birthday bash at home. Party poppers, birthday cake and a house

FUTURE STAR: The baby-faced Skibbereen girl who has become a rowing Olympian.

‘I’m glad now that there won’t be any need for girls to be nervous about going for heavyweight’ – Emily Hegarty full of laughter, it was a great night. Emily got up the next morning and trained. Rowing is a life-choice. You commit or you don’t. Emily did. That means life outside the sport is quiet, monastic-like, but that’s part of the deal when rowers sign up. They don’t see it as a sacrifice, though. This is where their passion lies. This is what they want to do. Emily started rowing when she was 11 years old. Her older sister Alice had rowed a bit before but had dropped off before Emily came on the scene. At the start she was part of a big group of girls who all joined Skibbereen Rowing Club together. As the years passed, some stopped rowing, but Emily didn’t. She had found her sport. Other sports didn’t fit, but rowing did. She saw, too, how she could get better. Her dad, Jerry, is a local road bowling legend and a former twotime All-Ireland intermediate champion. Her younger brother Dermot (20) found his calling with

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*** There have been a few important moments in Emily’s story that armed with her the belief that this young woman that grew up on a dairy farm a few miles outside Skibb can hold her own with the best rowers in the world. In 2016, she raced at the World Juniors in Rotterdam alongside her club-mate, Aughadown neighbour and friend, Aoife Casey. That was their first Worlds and they finished 12th overall. The year before, the same Skibb combination won silver in the double at the Coupe de la Jeunesse in Budapest; that was the ideal present on her 17th birthday. All indicators that Emily was finding her feet. On Friday, August 12th, 2016, two Skibb rowers who she knew, Gary and Paul O’Donovan, won Ireland’s firstever Olympic rowing medal at the Games in Rio. That glorious moment showed Irish rowers can win Olympic medals. Its significance wasn’t lost on Emily, who has just turned 18. ‘We watched the final in the National Rowing Centre – we were getting ready for the Worlds that month – and when they won silver there was silence for a while. People couldn’t believe it had happened. It was really, really exciting,’ she says. ‘It gave people a lot more of an incentive to commit to it as well. We all saw it was possible to win the big medals.’ Fast forward to Thursday, September 13th, 2018. That’s when Emily and Aifric Keogh – who is also in the women’s four for the Olympics – won their A/B semi-final of the women’s pair at that year’s World Rowing Championships

DOUBLE DELIGHT: Skibbereen duo Emily Hegarty and Aoife Casey won silver at the 2015 Coupe de la Jeunesse.

OF THE BEST

Ilen Rovers GAA Club. Emily is the world-class rower in the family. It’s hers. It has taken her to an Olympics. That’s how this middle child stands out from the crowd. Emily was the quietest of the Hegarty kids, never rocked the boat and never stressed out her parents. She’s determined, though. Look at how she combined studying for her Leaving Cert exams at Skibbereen Community School in 2017. Instead of training at the clubhouse before school, her parents bought her a rowing machine for home. Emily got up at 5.30am every morning, studied and then trained, and all before school. That commitment has paid off on all fronts: she is studying Biological Sciences in UCC and is a Quercus Sport scholar and will compete at this summer’s Olympics. The last time the Games were held, in 2016, she was in school and working part-time in Kalbos Café in Skibbereen town.

THE trio of Emily Hegarty, Aoife Casey and Lydia Heaphy are the first female Olympians in Skibbereen Rowing Club’s history – and they are following in the footsteps of incredible oarswomen.

FOUR-MIDABLE: Emily Hegarty from Skibbereen, Eimear Lambe, Aifric Keogh and Fiona Murtagh in action in the Olympic-bound women’s four at the 2021 European Rowing Championships.

The view from the front of her house in Mohonagh takes in the River Ilen in the distance. in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. They were through to the A final, the medal race. They were also the first Irish women’s rowers to achieve this feat in the women’s pair. They finished sixth in the final. For Emily, that’s the moment she knew she could mix it at world level. ‘It reassured me that this is what I want to do,’ Emily told the Star before. ‘There were question marks, especially given it was my first senior World championship and I had just turned 20 at the time, so finishing sixth was a boost. ‘It showed me that we can be competitive because we weren’t expected to do that well there.’ It gave Emily the confidence she needed. Since then, she’s been making waves. In 2019 she won a silver medal in the women’s four at the World U23 Rowing Championships in Florida. That crew – with one change – went to that year’s World

seniors in Linz that also doubled up as an Olympic qualification event. They missed out on booking their tickets to Tokyo, but still showed enough to suggest they could come through the final qualification regatta. They were only getting started. *** Emily is the youngest in the Irish women’s four that also includes Fiona Murtagh (Galway), Eimear Lambe (Dublin) and Aifric Keogh (Galway). The West Cork woman holds her own in a boat that has been in the headlines for all the right reasons this year. They won a silver medal at April’s European Rowing Championships in Italy, finishing just behind world medallists and three-time European champions, The Netherlands. The signs in Varese were encouraging. Six weeks later, the Irish four dominated the final Olympic qualification regatta in Lucerne to win gold and grab their spot at the Games. Once they get the boat moving at race rhythm, they’re fast. From outside-the-Olympicslooking-in at the start of the year, now they’re being mentioned as possible ‘A’ final contenders in Tokyo. But that’s been the plan all along. ‘To get the most out of our training we went into the season as if we were going to the Olympics. All our training has been for Tokyo, whether we were going or not,’ Emily explains. ‘When we did qualify, it was a like a sigh of relief because we had achieved what we wanted, but we’re not just happy to be going to the Olympics we want to achieve something there, too. ‘We want to make the most out of this chance and behave as if we will win a medal. At this stage there is nothing to lose, so why wouldn’t we expect anything else? ‘What gives me a lot of confidence, too, when I am in the

boat is that I am racing when three women who couldn’t give up within an inch of their lives. I know how hard they are working for this and that makes me want it more.’ Confidence is high in the Irish women’s four right now. They have trained incredibly hard. They spent four weeks in Italy on a training camp ahead of the Games. Work, work, work. Two, sometimes three sessions a day. Everything geared towards Tokyo. The hard graft is nothing new to Emily; it’s the currency she’s been using since her early days at Skibbereen Rowing Club. The view from the front of her house in Mohonagh takes in the River Ilen in the distance. Oldcourt looks back from the other side of the river. From home, they can see the rowing boats glide up and down the Ilen. That’s where Emily learned to row, then race and then win. Along her journey she learned to believe in herself and her ability. Add that to her work ethic, commitment and talent, she has matured into a worldclass rower. Now she’s an Olympian. Before the Irish heavyweight gang flew out to Italy, they got their hands on the official Team Ireland kit at the National Rowing Centre. As Emily held the kit, she thought to herself: this is really happening. What she probably didn’t notice amidst all the excitement that day is that there were young Irish rowers, preparing for the World Juniors and World U23s, who were watching on as the current Olympians received their Olympic gear. That lit a fire. Those young guns want to be there too some day. Like when Emily saw Sanita Puspure compete as a heavyweight at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics. Now Emily is there, and as a heavyweight in a club known for its lightweights. This powerful Skibb rower’s legacy will last long after these Games. She’s showing what’s possible. The first heavyweight Skibb Olympic rower doesn’t want to be the last.

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Denise Walsh is the most decorated oarswoman in Skibbereen and has won 17 national championship titles between 2010 and 2018. In 2010 she competed at the Youth Olympics in Singapore while she also raced in the A final at the 2013 U23 World championships. Denise flew the Skibbereen flag at international level for many years and her best season, undoubtedly, was 2017 when she Ireland’s top women’s lightweight sculler. That year, after winning a silver medal at World Rowing Cup I, the Skibb woman, then 24 years old, won a superb silver at the European Rowing Championships in Racice, Czech Republic. She also competed in the A final at the 2017 senior Worlds. Orla Hayes is another terrific role model who has led the way for Skibbereen’s oarswomen over the years. A vastly experienced rower, she's represented Ireland at the U23 World Championships and several World Rowing Cups, and won bronze in the lightweight women’s single at the 2008 World University Rowing Championships in Belgrade. Closer to home, she’s racked up the national championships, too, with 15 titles to her name. In the early 1990s, Grainne O’Donovan, the pocket rocket from Carrigfada in Skibbereen, was in a league of her own, and she was a serial winner. Between 1991 and 1994 she won TEN titles at the Irish Rowing Championships, including an incredible four-title haul in 1993. Grainne competed at the World U23 Rowing Championships in 1992 when she was just 17 years old. She won a total 13 national championship titles.

TAKING OVER TOKYO THE SOUTHERN STAR

BY KIERAN McCARTHY

Walsh: You aspire to be what’s come before you

THE SUPER SIX: Lydia Heaphy, Fintan McCarthy, Emily Hegarty, Paul O’Donovan, Aoife Casey and Gary O’Donovan all learned their trade at Skibbereen Rowing Club.

AS soon as you walk through the front door at Skibbereen Rowing Club and into the hall, your eyes are drawn to the glistening gold board that covers an entire wall. This carries the name of every Skibb rower that has won a national championship title for the club, starting with Nuala Lupton in 1976. This is the wall of champions and its positioning and its power are important to understand. ‘When you come in the door, it’s the first thing that you see,’ explains former Ireland rower Denise Walsh, whose name appears on this board an incredible 17 times. ‘For the young ones, they come in, they see the names, they hear us talking about these people. ‘You aspire to be what’s come before you.’ The championship board is a symbol of Skibb’s glorious success on the water. This is the country club, formed in 1970, that has grown to become the greatest rowing club in the country – and the wall of champions traces their rise to the top. ‘When people do see the board, they might not say it but they want to get their name on it,’ coach Dominic Casey explained before. His name is there, too. Eight times. The names of the club’s current Olympians all adorn this wall as well. Paul O’Donovan. Fintan McCarthy. Emily Hegarty. Aoife Casey. Gary O’Donovan. Lydia Heaphy. This is the club where their rowing journey began and this is where local volunteers coached, trained, helped and advised them all. Their talents and work ethic have taken them to Tokyo, but it takes a village to raise a child and a community to raise an athlete. ‘Everyone here works really hard,’

Denise Walsh says. ‘There are a load of volunteers and people that help you along the way. Even as a young kid, you look up to them. There is always someone here to help. ‘We keep it simple and we enjoy it,’ she adds – and they are two key components of this jigsaw that makes up one of the greatest sports clubs in the country. Take the club gym. It’s basic, but it works. It works because of the mentality of the club members. This club was built on a foundation of hard work and that is passed on from one generation to the next. That creates a winning culture and environment. Look at how Denise Walsh, a former European silver medallist and World A finalist, is currently coaching. Why? ‘I love the rowing club and I want to help out as much as I can,’ she says. She’s giving back, like so many more do. And it’s the enthusiasm and passion of club members like Walsh, and all the tremendous coaches and volunteers, that keep this club moving forward. The Olympians in Tokyo will, deservedly, take the headlines these weeks, but recently a young Skibb rower, Finn O’Reilly, won a silver medal at the World U23 Championships. The production line is strong. The next generation are being equipped with the same skills, talents, self-belief and confidence as the club’s Olympians. The rowing club that has put Skibbereen and West Cork on the world map isn’t sitting still. • Skibbereen RC is currently running a Virtual Journey to Tokyo fundraiser, in aid of Skibbereen Tidy Towns and Skibbereen Rowing Club’s young rowers’ programme. Go to www.idonate.ie/ SkibbereenRC to donate

Gary and Paul were two ordinary men in IT was an eerie silence in the dull Rio haze. The Irish double sat at the start line in lane one. The USA were next door in lane two, then it was South Africa, France, Norway, all the way over to Poland in lane six. This was it. A lifetime of training coming down to the next six minutes. The quietness was interrupted by a piercing, loud roar from a fan. ‘COME ON IRELAND!’ Gary smiled. Not much point shouting now, he thought; we haven’t even started. All six crews waited for the signal to start. Beep. Go. Gary and Paul’s first two strokes were wobbly. The naked eye wouldn’t see that, but they felt it. Two bad strokes. But they settled quickly. 300 metres in, it was the start they’d wanted. They were sticking with the leading boats, doing what Morten had asked.

Gary uttered only two words during the Olympic final. The first was his comment on their start. They were reasonably comfortable and hadn’t expended too much energy. ‘Good.’ They were in fifth place after 500 metres of the two-kilometre track. At the halfway mark they were still fifth but the five boats were separated by only one second, with the French ahead. Now the Skibbereen men started to motor. That raw, agricultural power moulded in Lisheen helping their dad on the farm and strengthened on the Ilen was starting to count. They helped Teddy turn cattle. They picked stones. They fetched shovels and pikes. They rode in his tractor. They were used to grafting. It was time to go to work again. Paul had his eye on the American double in the next lane. It was the

only yellow boat in the final so it stood out. Out in lane one, that was Paul’s point of reference. He wanted to be just ahead of the Americans so when they came through down the middle, like their form suggested, then the Irish double could use them to bring them up onto France. That is what happened. With 500 metres of the 2,000 remaining, Gary and Paul had surged into second place, though the race was still bunched with France still ahead, Norway in third, then South Africa, the USA and Poland. The race for a medal was on. In Banyoles on the pre-Olympic training camp Gary and Paul would row 1,500 metre pieces. With 200 metres left, Gary would call ‘Up’ and they would give absolutely everything to the finish line. Up the rate. Up the power. Up the technique. The boat would rise out of the water

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and the speed would rocket for those last twenty strokes. In Rio they hadn’t used this in practice or in the races but Gary felt strong. He knew they could win. ‘UP.’ He called it a lot earlier than usual. There was still 400 metres to go. Don’t ever regret anything, Gary thought, it’s time to empty the tank. The boat lifted. Incredibly, they closed up on France. The favourites were clinging onto their lead. Coming to the line, in those last 100 metres, Gary and Paul’s vision and hearing were gone. Holy fuck, they were both feeling it. It was just muscle memory now. Their bodies knew what to do. Keep going. Those strokes they’d pulled millions of times before. They may as well have been on the Ilen in Skibbereen. Two ordinary men in a boat on water doing the extraordinary.

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Phil is putting Bandon AC on world map BY GER McCARTHY BANDON Athletics Club Chairperson Patrick McSweeney has never known excitement quite like this. Phil Healy will compete in three events at the Tokyo Olympics with the entire world, including her home club Bandon AC, its coaches, club members and an army of West Cork supporters watching on. The Knockaneady native is not just Ireland’s fastest woman or Ireland 100m record holder, she is also a graduate of Bandon AC and that’s something McSweeney and his committee are immensely proud of. ‘It’s fantastic to think Phil will compete in three events – the 200m, 400m and the 4x400m mixed relay – at the Olympics, it’s mind-boggling really,’ McSweeney says. ‘She has done incredibly well over the last number of years. To be competing in three Olympic events is phenomenal. It is a pretty unique situation to have an Irish athlete good enough to qualify for three different events. Everyone in Bandon Athletics Club is immensely proud of her.’ McSweeney would have come across both Phil and her sister Joan Healy in their younger years when representing the Bandon club.

‘Everyone in Bandon Athletics Club is immensely proud of her’ – Patrick McSweeney, Bandon AC Chairman ‘I remember when Phil and Joan first joined our club and Phil would have only been eight or nine-years-old at the time,’ McSweeney recalls ‘She competed in various events through the years. I remember Phil taking part in all the track and field events as well as running crosscountry for the club as a young athlete. She was very heavily involved in athletics from a young age. That’s why it is great to see somebody coming up through the ranks and making the breakthrough that Phil has.’ One thing is certain, irrespective of whatever results Healy manages to produce over the next couple of weeks, there is going to be a surge of interest in athletics and a new generation of West Cork athletes looking to emulate their Irish hero. ‘Phil is already a role model for a lot of young people,’ McSweeney says. ‘She has shown what can be achieved if you have the talent, are

LOCAL HERO: Bandon AC superstar Phil Healy, pictured on top of the podium here, has helped put her local athletics club on the map. willing to work incredibly hard and make the sacrifices. Obviously, things need to line up for you, too, but Phil Healy is proof that hard work allied with talent will get you places. ‘Ireland may not be seen as a nation that produces sprinters but for one of our athletes to qualify for three Olympic events is proof that anything is possible. ‘Phil is proof that athletics is a fantastic sport for children to get involved in. All sports teach you life lessons but athletics, because of the individual aspect of it, does teach a certain amount of resilience as well. It is not easy for a kid to be out there

on their own in a race and having a certain job to do. ‘What we coach is that win or lose you walk away with a smile on your face and try to do better the next day.’ Healy’s ascension to the top of the Irish, European and, hopefully, Olympic podiums come at an opportune moment for Bandon AC. A new, long-term club facilities development will gain traction as soon as the Tokyo Games have concluded to cater for the next generation of young Bandon athletes. ‘We are undergoing a big club development after purchasing a new eight-acre site just outside of

Bandon,’ McSweeney explains. ‘Bandon is looking to build a full 400-metre all-weather track as well as an indoor training area. It is an ambitious project and going to take a number of years to complete. ‘It is terrific to be getting a bit of publicity because of the new development. Sometimes people hear of our club and say, “Oh that’s Phil Healy the Irish sprinter’s club” which definitely helps bring a spotlight to what our club is trying to build for the future.’

• To support Bandon AC’s track fundraiser as it builds a home for the club, go to gofundme.com

a boat on water doing the extraordinary For one brilliant moment gold was a possibility. But the French started to pull away slightly and now Norway were closing in on Ireland. In a desperate final surge, Gary and Paul hit the last two buoys before crossing the line in second place in 6:31.23, 0.53 of a second behind the French and 0.16 of a second ahead of Norway. The tiniest of margins separated gold from bronze. Everything changed in that moment. Their lives, their legacy and Irish rowing. The big screen confirmed the news that saw Skibbereen explode: Gary and Paul had won an Olympic silver medal. It was the country’s first-ever Olympic rowing medal. After years of near misses and pain, Ireland had that first rowing medal, and their first of these Games too. In the middle of the controversy

surrounding Olympic Council of Ireland President Pat Hickey, who was knee-deep in an Olympic ticket scandal that cast a dark shadow over Ireland at the Games, two Lisheen boys put sport on the front pages for the right reasons, with the most important result in the history of Irish rowing. Gary leaned forward out of his seat and wrapped an arm around Paul. No one else mattered right now. It was a reminder of the embrace they shared less than twelve months earlier in Aiguebelette when they

LEGENDS: Lisheen’s Gary and Paul O’Donovan celebrate winning their silver medal at the 2016 Games.

qualified for the Olympics by the skin of their teeth, again by just a fraction of a second. Just out of the boat, then, like now, Gary swung his arms

around Paul and rested his head on his younger brother’s chest. And they stayed there. Brothers. Back in the boat park Dominic had watched it all unfold on a TV screen. Afterwards, he didn’t go down to the presentation or the grandstand to celebrate. His work was done. He preferred where he was. But he was undoubtedly the third man in the double that day. In off the water there were immediate media interviews and the medals

ceremony before they finally met their parents Trish and Teddy and the rest of their growing support. Hugs, kisses, tears and back-slaps. Gary wanted the spare Irish flag Trish had brought with her to Brazil. Mother’s intuition, she had been convinced they’d medal and so came prepared. It was her flag that they hoisted proudly on top of one of Paul’s oars as they performed a lap of honour in front of the grandstand. ‘Olé, Olé, Olé.’ ‘Ireland, Ireland, Ireland.’ The party was just getting started in Rio and at home in Skibbereen.

• This is an extract from Something in the Water, the story of How Skibbereen Rowing Club Conquered the World, written by Kieran McCarthy, sports editor of The Southern Star. It was shortlisted for Irish Sports Book of the Year in 2019.

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From the 2016 World Juniors to this year’s Olympics, Aoife Casey’s success story has been years in the making. KIERAN McCARTHY caught up with the Skibbereen rower ahead of the Games

N a raw Saturday morning in February 2019, still in the grips of the January blues, I got a glimpse into the life of worldclass rowers. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was cold. There was a biting chill hanging in the air at the National Rowing Centre in Inniscarra, but Aoife Casey, then 19 years old, took no notice. It was dry, at least. Like all Skibbereen rowers, she’s as hard as nails. She was training in her single scull. The Irish lightweight highperformance gang – overseen by her dad and coach Dominic Casey – were on the lake at 8.30am for the first session. They paddled up towards the bridge. The warm-up batted away the lingering shivers. And off they went, up and down the lake. The hard slog, again. Some time later and in off the water, Aoife had time for a quick shower and a bite to eat before a team meeting upstairs. She came prepared, tucking into a lunchbox of fried-up beans, pepper, coriander and tuna. She made flap jacks the night before, too. After the meeting, Aoife was back on the water for her second session, this time in a lightweight double with Skibbereen club-mate and Irish international Denise Walsh. Tough going, physically and mentally, but that’s the existence of a rower – and it’s the life Aoife knows and enjoys. It’s also the life she chooses. She has also chosen to trust in the process set out by her dad, Irish lightweight rowing coach Dominic Casey, and that’s paying off as two years on from that cold morning in early 2019, when I got to peak behind the curtain for a few hours, Aoife is Tokyo-bound in the Irish lightweight women’s double alongside Margaret Cremen from Lee Rowing Club. ‘He has definitely instilled in us to trust the process: that hard work pays off,’ Aoife says. ‘Even during the winter, if there was a gale-force wind outside, Mags and myself would be looking out the door at the water, asking do we have to go out, and he said, “Yes, this is what Tokyo will be like”. At that stage we hadn’t even qualified for the Games. ‘You have to be able to manage the boat in any conditions. If there was any bit of wind, we were sent straight out. He pushed us hard but that will stand to us. ‘It’s been a long process that has taken years. All those mornings during the winters getting up early to go training. It’s been a slog but there has always been a target: to get better. It’s good to see that all the hard work has paid off. ‘If you told me at 16 that I would be going to the Olympics when I was 22, I don’t know would I have believed you, but here we are.’ Aoife’s trust in the process is reaping rewards and here’s a rower

AOIFE’S HARD WORK IS PAYING OFF READY TO ROW: Aoife Casey can’t wait to show the world what she can do at the Olympics.

(Photo: Seb Daly/Sportsfile)

who was surrounded by the sport and the water from the start. *** Aoife (22) is the second oldest of her siblings. Her older sister Niamh (24) rowed but is taking time out at the moment to concentrate on her Masters. Then there’s Caoimhe (18) who rows, as does Dominic (15) – and they’re making the most of their sister going to the Olympics by using her car to ferry themselves over and back to the rowing club in Skibb. All four have a love of the water and all four enjoy staying active – and that’s because of their parents, Eleanor and Dominic, and the environment they created at home in Ardralla. Eleanor rowed with Skibbereen before, and coached, has ran in marathons, competed in triathlons and loves to cycle. In his own rowing days, Dominic was one of Ireland’s finest oarsmen in the 1980s and as a

coach you’d do well to name a busier man in the country. They know all about hard work, too, and that’s rubbed off on their kids. ‘Aoife is relentless with her training. She’s very motivated and never wants to miss a session. She will train every day because she knows if she goes to every session then that is the best she can do,’ Niamh explains. That’s the process that Aoife has committed to. Hard work will take you places and it has for the Skibb oarswoman, both on and off the water. For the last few years she has split her time between rowing and her studies. In May 2017, only 17 years old, Aoife, alongside Margaret Cremen, won a silver medal at the European Junior Championships in Germany, Ireland’s first-ever medals at this event. The final was on the Sunday and she was back in the classroom at Skibbereen Community School the next day. She uses her studies to switch off

from rowing and vice versa, but her work ethic to both shows us why this Skibbereen woman – now studying Medical and Health Sciences at UCC – is excelling on and off the water. Both rowing and academics compliment one another because you need discipline to achieve in both. Aoife has that discipline, has that work-rate, has the ideal environment, and also has one incredible experience that left an impression. *** Aoife was on that red doubledecker bus that snailed around Skibbereen town on Monday, August 29th, 2016, for

the glorious homecoming of Olympic silver medallists, Gary and Paul O’Donovan. The town creaked with the crowd that night as the Lisheen legends – from the same Aughadown parish as Aoife – took centre stage. She was 17 at the time and had

THE DREAM TEAM: Coach Dominic Casey with the Irish women’s lightweight double of Margaret Cremen, left, and his daugther, Aoife, right.

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FAMOUS

THE SOUTHERN STAR

FIVE athletes – including two sets of brothers – from Skibbereen Rowing Club have previously represented Ireland at the Olympic Games.

NEED FOR SPEED: Ireland’s Aoife Casey and Margaret Cremen competing at the 2021 European Rowing Championships in Varese. just competed at the World Junior Championships in Rotterdam alongside Skibb club-mate Emily Hegarty in the double. That was Aoife’s first World championship event; they finished 12th. There was a loud Skibb contingent at those championships because the Olympic party started in Rio continued there, as Paul stormed to World gold in the lightweight single. ‘That was such a learning experience because I was so young and it was a real eye-opener regards the standard,’ Aoife says. ‘Emily and myself had raced the year before at the Coupe de la Jeunesse but this was our first real World Rowing event. ‘I remember flying home into the homecoming in Skibb and there was all this fanfare. It was such a motivator to think that we finished in 12th place, but next year I wanted to do better than that. It made me really hungry for more training and more rowing, if that was possible. ‘It’s quite mad when you think about it now, that I was on that bus for the homecoming in 2016, and so was Emily, and look at us now, both going to the Olympics but in different boats. A lot can happen in five years and has happened, too.’ *** Aoife’s rise from the 2016 World Juniors to the 2021 Olympics is not an overnight success story. It’s backboned by those years of grafting and rowing and weights and rowing and training and rowing, all the time with the target of improving. And she is. And she’s also only 22 years old since June. Aoife’s still on the way up and so too is her partner in the double, Margaret Cremen. This Skibbereen and Rochestown combination is strong. In their junior days, they were rivals on the water and there was a competitive relationship there. Now, they’re crewmates, house-mates in Ovens and friends. ‘We both have the same goal and we can push each other on to get the best out of each other,’ Aoife explains

FAN-TASTIC! Aoife Casey (right) and Denise Walsh cheering on Gary and Paul O’Donovan during the the 2016 Olympics in Rio. Five years on it’s Aoife going to the Olympics. – and their results back that up. There’s that silver medal together at the 2017 European Juniors. They won silver again at the European U23s last year. Then in May, pulling the hardest strokes they ever pulled, they took the last remaining lightweight women’s double spot up for grabs at the final Olympic qualification regatta in Lucerne. That was an incredible moment for the young crew who were ranked as outsiders for the Games earlier in the year. The thinking was this is a young crew that can target the 2024 Olympics in Paris, but they had different ideas; they wanted Tokyo. All the hard work paid off. Aoife burst into tears afterwards with the relief. She had qualified for the Olympics. Now she’s there, she wants to cause another surprise and prove the doubters wrong. ‘It’s an exciting time for every boat, especially for us. From the start of the year to now we have improved a lot. We believe in ourselves and what we are doing,’ Aoife explains. ‘When it comes down to it, it’s us and the boat, us and our coach.

We don’t listen to other peoples’ opinions. What matters most is what we think so when we are on the water it’s “what does Dominic think about our technique for that piece?” or “what does he think about the speed for that piece?” It’s what do I think and what does Mags think. We bounce that info off each other and build it from there. ‘We are motivated to do the best for ourselves because at the end of the day that’s all we can do.’ There’s an assertiveness to Aoife that’s impressive. Mentally, she’s very strong. She’s a leader in the boat. Usually she sits in the bow seat and makes the calls – and she’s comfortable there. Responsibility rests easy on her young shoulders. She’s driven to find those extra inches and extra speed that will make all the difference. It’s a goal her dad shares. *** Dominic Casey is a former World Rowing Coach of the Year, but Aoife stands on her own as an Olympicclass rower. Their stories are intertwined, as a coach and rower

and father and daughter, but Aoife’s success deserves to be recognised on its own. She wants to make her own name in the world of rowing. ‘When I am in the boat or on the water it doesn’t really matter who my coach is or whether he is my dad or not. At the dinner table he is my dad and at the rowing table he is my coach,’ she explains. Dominic’s influence, of course, is there, but it’s Aoife who has that inbuilt drive and desire to connect the dots from the River Ilen to the Tokyo Olympics. It’s Aoife who was in the boat with Margaret Cremen when they qualified for the Olympics. It’s the same duo who will power the Irish lightweight women’s double at the Games in Tokyo. Aoife’s carving out her name in rowing, shaped by following and trusting in the process. All those kilometres on the water, rough and calm, and all those hours on the rowing machine and all those hours in the gym – that’s the journey that has taken Aoife to this point. And she’s only getting started.

Eugene Coakley was the club’s first Olympian in 2000 when he went to the Sydney Games as a sub. Four years later he was on the Irish men’s lightweight four crew that finished sixth in the A final at the Olympics in Athens. Richie Archibald, Niall O’Toole and Paul Griffin made up the crew. Eugene then missed out on the 2008 Olympics in Beijing when he was replaced in the bow seat by Cathal Moynihan ahead of the Games – the lightweight four finished tenth overall at that Olympics. Skibbereen man Timmy Harnedy travelled to the 2004 Olympics in Athens as a sub, having lost his place in the Irish men’s lightweight four in the run-up to the Games, despite playing a crucial role in qualifying the boat in ’03. Richard Coakley, younger brother to Eugene, competed in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. He went into the Games as a sub for the Irish men’s lightweight four but Richard got his big chance when he replaced Gearoid Towey, who had to withdraw from the B final through illness. The boat finished tenth overall. In 2016 brothers Gary and Paul O’Donovan took the world by storm when they won an historic silver, in the men’s lightweight double, at the Olympics in Rio. They finished less than a second behind the winning French crew. It was the first time Ireland had ever won a rowing medal at the Games.

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TAKING OVER TOKYO THE SOUTHERN STAR

The kids who became Olympians LISHEEN LEGENDS: An apple a day creates Olympic silver rowing medallists and World champions, it seems, and this great snap of Gary and Paul O’Donovan, from Lisheen in Aughadown, shows two brothers joined at the hip as kids and who went on to transform Irish rowing as adults.

HELLO THERE: The phone hasn’t stopped ringing for Ireland’s fastest woman ahead of the Olympics, but Phil Healy had plenty of practice when she was younger as our photo shows! She’s a fan of WhatsApp groups, too, we’ve been told! All that practice has paid off.

We have raided the family albums of the seven West Cork athletes who have travelled to Tokyo to show you our Olympians as you have never seen them before! We all know what our local heroes look like now – but here they are as kids, full of dreams!

STARS IN HER EYES: Emily Hegarty is on the Irish women’s four crew that won silver at the 2021 European Rowing Championships in May, and given the hard work this Skibb rower has put in over the years, she was always destined to achieve big things. TWIN POWER: A cheeky smile by a six-year-old Fintan McCarthy from Foherlagh in Aughadown who has gone on to become a World and European rowing champion, and an Olympian. Fintan has a twin brother Jake who is a few minutes older.

LEAP LEGEND: Lydia Heapy will fly the Leap flag at the Olympics this year as a reserve for the Irish lightweight women’s double. She is, we believe, the first Olympian ever from Leap. One small step for Lydia, one giant Leap for her parish. YOUNG GUN: Aoife Casey is the youngest of the Skibbereen rowers at these Olympics, and here she is as a five-year-old at Aughadown playschool!

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TAKING OVER TOKYO

‘The younger athletes have benefitted from extra year’ Clonakilty native Kate Kirby is Ireland’s Olympic Sport Psychologist

THE SOUTHERN STAR

THE OLYMPIC VENUES

Athletics: Olympic Stadium PHIL Healy will be in action at the Olympic Stadium when she competes at these Games. This venue will be used for the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as the athletics – and it’s the stage where the Ballineen woman hopes to shine in the women’s 200m and 400m, as well as the 4x400m mixed relay. The Olympic Stadium in Tokyo has a capacity of 68,000 and it’s the centrepiece for these Games. ‘We don’t know a whole lot about the stadium apart from it is state-of-the-art, but it will be an empty stadium because there will be no fans there. That won’t affect athletes now because they are used to running in empty stadiums at this stage,’ Healy’s coach Shane McCormack says. The Olympic Stadium is a complete rebuild from the previous National Stadium that was main stadium for the 1964 Olympic Games. After the Games the venue will be used for sporting and cultural events

BY GER McCARTHY

LONAKILTY native Dr Kate Kirby will play a critical role at this summer’s Games as Ireland’s Olympic Sport Psychologist. The 2020 Olympics are one year late and the world is still in the grips of the pandemic, including the host city Tokyo. As 11,000 athletes from more than 200 countries descend on a city with a population of 14 million, and given the backdrop to the Games, experiencing feelings of anxiousness, apprehension or just downright worry is completely understandable for any individual taking part. This is why Dr Kate Kirby’s role with the Irish Olympics team will be more important than ever. Head of Performance Psychology at the Sport Ireland Institute, Dr Kirby has worked at the highest level of sport over the past ten years. She attended both the London and Rio Olympic Games as a member of Team Ireland’s support staff, and her contribution to Annalise Murphy’s Olympic silver medal through their long-standing work together has been widely acknowledged. So, what effect has the Tokyo Games being cancelled over 12 months ago along with repeated cancellation rumours had on the Irish athletes before they travel to Asia? ‘In terms of the Olympics postponement, it very much depends on the stage of the (individual) athlete’s career,’ Dr Kirby explains. ‘What we’ve found is the younger athletes who are looking towards the 2024 Paris Olympics have benefitted from that extra year. They have been able to sustain their motivation because

Dr Kate Kirby is Head of Performance Psychology at the Sport Ireland Institute. (Photo: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile) it has created an opportunity for them. The athletes hoping to retire at the end of 2020 have found the extra year very difficult. ‘It wasn’t a universal response (from the athletes). In terms of how people have coped, it has been pretty cyclical. Very few were able to remain fully motivated throughout that year and a bit. Most people had periods where they were good and periods where they struggled. ‘Also, sports differed in terms of accessibility. Like, Irish Sailing based themselves in the Canaries for the first three months of this year and had pretty unrestricted access and racing opportunities. Other team sports, like hockey, the logistics of moving were much more difficult as were competition opportunities.’ Dr Kirby’s reputation has been enhanced by providing expertise to numerous governing bodies, including the IRFU, Irish Sailing, Irish Rowing, Hockey Ireland, Tennis Ireland, Horse Sport Ireland and numerous intercounty GAA teams. The Clonakilty woman’s most recent work, as Ireland’s Olympic Sport Psychologist, has involved speaking one-on-one with individual athletes. Thankfully, the global pandemic hasn’t prevented Kirby from communicating with Irish athletes preparing at home and abroad. ‘It wasn’t hugely unusual for me to

Rowing: Sea Forest Waterway SKIBBEREEN’S rowers will be in action at the Sea Forest Waterway venue, located close to central Tokyo, as this is where the rowing and canoeing events will take place. It’s one of the few international regatta courses on salt water, and there are concerns over the windy and hot conditions at the venue, but Skibb rower Paul O’Donovan doesn’t believe that will cause any problems. ‘I think they say the salt water makes it even a bit quicker as there is more buoyancy and lift in the boats which reduces the drag,’ Paul said, and he added, ‘If the wind is right there might be some quick times.’ deliver support to athletes remotely,’ she explains. ‘Olympic athletes tend to travel so much. I’ve worked with (Irish) sailing for almost 15 years and they spend 250 days a year outside of the country. Historically, we would have used Skype, moved to Facetime and now, obviously, we use Zoom. ‘Athletes accessing psychology from abroad would always have been done remotely. It probably wasn’t as difficult for psychology as it was for strength and conditioning (coaches) or physios. They would have had to completely

pivot how they ran their services. ‘The thing I found myself for the athletes and sports I had established relationships with, it was quite easy to continue a relatively uninterrupted service provision. Whereas it was quite difficult to build relationships with new sports and new athletes. ‘For example, I only started with Irish hockey back in February 2020. I came on board as part of a short-term project to try and help see them through to the Games. I would have only met with them once or twice, face to face before lockdown. I would not have seen any of

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them again until September. Getting embedded in those sports was really difficult. ‘Likewise with rowing being based in Cork, I couldn’t travel down to see them. As a result, I went pretty much 12 months without seeing any of those athletes face to face. Again, the ones I knew better and were used to contacting me in Dublin from abroad, everything was fine. Building that rapport, building that trust and establishing a relationship with athletes who were new to me and I to them, definitely was challenging.’

TAKING OVER TOKYO THE SOUTHERN STAR

Things you don’t need to know about our Olympians – but you still want to

OUNG ROVERS: We’ve heard the tales of Gary and Paul O’Donovan playing football in their younger days with their local GAA club, Ilen Rovers, but up until we got our hands on these exclusive photos, we weren’t entirely convinced. Now, we are. Check out baby-faced Gary and Paul on the main photo on this page. We can’t vouch for their football ability, but they did line out in Ilen colours at underage level. They both played for Skibbereen RFC too, we’re reliably informed. Photos, please.

OME DON’T LIKE IT HOT: He’s red hot in the Irish lightweight men’s double right now, but World and European champion Fintan McCarthy is not a fan of hot drinks. Skibb rowers love their coffee – we stress the word love – but Fintan doesn’t. And he doesn’t drink tea either. But if you’re looking for a Netflix recommendation, he’s the goto man.

N THE GENES: We know by now that Gary and Paul O’Donovan are first cousins with rising Munster and Ireland rugby star Gavin Coombes (Gary and Paul’s dad Teddy is a brother to Gavin’s mom Regina) – but did you know that another Skibbereen Olympian, Emily Hegarty, is also related to Gary, Paul and Gavin? Let’s explain: Teddy and Regina are second cousins to Emily’s dad, Jerry, so it means Emily is a third cousin to Gary and Paul, as well as Gavin! Wait, there’s more: Emily is also a third cousin to former World rowing champion Shane O’Driscoll. Emily’s mom, Mary, is a second cousin to Shane’s mom, Mary.

FROM THE VAULT: Both Gary and Paul O’Donovan played football with Ilen Rovers before rowing took over. Gary (front row, second from right) looks like he means business. Paul (back row, fifth from right) looks more relaxed ahead of this game. Another well-known local rower, Shane O’Driscoll, is also on this team (back row, far left).

AKING UP A STORM: Off the track, Ireland’s fastest woman Phil Healy is a woman of many talents and at home in the Healy household, her baking is the stuff of legend. To quote our source, ‘her brownies are to die for’. Then there is her coffee cake and marble cake, too. We need to taste these delicacies to be 100 percent sure and then we’ll report back. Phil is also a tremendous

ambassador for West Cork and has been known to go through the items in the fridge at her house in Waterford and point out the West Cork products to her housemates!

ARISH OF ROWERS: Skibbereen Rowing Club is where the magic happens and where local rowers are equipped to take on the world – and the parish of Aughadown is providing

a constant supply. FIVE of the six Skibb rowers at these Olympics in Tokyo are from this one parish, as well as lightweight rowing coach Dominic Casey. Lydia Heaphy from Leap is the sole outlier. Gary and Paul O’Donovan are from Lisheen, coach Dominic Casey and Aoife Casey live in Ardralla, Fintan McCarthy grew up in Foherlagh and Emily Hegarty is from Mohonagh.

EEPING IT IN THE FAMILY: The Celtic Ross West Cork Sports Star Awards have been on the go since 1998 and hundreds of local sportspeople have been honoured – but the Hegartys have one achievement all to themselves. In May this year Emily was honoured with a monthly award while back in December 1999 her dad Jerry also won a monthly award for her road bowling exploits (a two-time AllIreland intermediate champion). They are the first and only parent and kid combination to ever win West Cork Sports Star Monthly Awards. Worth noting too that Dominic Casey was entered into the West Cork Sports Star Hall of Fame in 2017 and his daughter Aoife won a monthly award in May 2021.

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