BY KIERAN McCARTHY
DOMINIC Casey was his usual modest self in the aftermath of Skibbereen rowing’s latest attention-grabbing exploits on the world stage.
The man with the Midas touch has now coached three Irish lightweight men’s doubles to Olympic medals in three successive Games, but, not surprisingly, he preferred to downplay his role in Irish rowing’s second Olympic gold medal after Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy powered to gold and glory in Paris.
‘I am delighted for the athletes, they really worked hard and put in a strong performance – you can’t ask for anymore,’ Casey told Off The Ball.
The Aughadown man, like Paul O’Donovan, is a common denominator with the lightweight men’s doubles’ silver medal in Rio and now back-to-back gold triumphs in Tokyo and Paris. Coach Casey’s role cannot be understated.
‘We’ve been with Dominic for a long time now, he is just so relentless,’ Fintan McCarthy explains.
‘He looks after us so well, he gives us free reign when we need it. We like taking ownership of our training programme and pushing boundaries and he is very good at letting us go to a certain point.
‘He lets us get on with it, and keeps an eye on us.’
Paul agrees, highlighting how Coach Casey values the input of his athletes – and the results speak for themselves. It’s worth noting too that the Irish lightweight women’s double also qualified for their Olympic final in paris, finishing fifth.
‘What is good about Dominic is he knows his limitations as a coach. No coach can know what the athlete is feeling or how tired they are or how fresh they are, it’s just not possible. Sometimes they can see it and get signs, and he is good at that,’ Paul says.
‘If he sets a training programme and says “50 kilometres today”, and we’re feeling good, handled the 50 kilometres every day and want to push it up to 60, he’ll be like “well, if ye are feeling good, try it and see how it goes”. He’s watching us then, and will let us know if we are fatiguing a bit and need to rein it in.’ This all-Skibbereen team has enjoyed incredible success at Olympic, World and European levels, with Coach Casey involved in all.
