BY KIERAN McCARTHY
THERE’S no one-size-fits-all answer to explain why Paul O’Donovan has risen from a three-bedroom bungalow in Lisheen to Olympic mortality and world domination, but his enjoyment of the sport he loves is a central piece in this jigsaw.
‘Sure, I’m never happier than when I’m out there, doing loads of rowing. It’s brilliant, why would I want to switch off from that,’ he told The Irish Times last year.
This is a man who loves to row and loves to race – and he does both better than anyone else. Last weekend he won his SEVENTH World title, and those glorious golds are companions for his THREE Olympic medals (two gold and one silver) that saw him ascend to Olympic greatness as Ireland’s greatest Olympian – the Skibbereen machine is the first Irish sportsperson to win medals at three different Olympics.
That his latest gold triumph, this time in the single scull in Canada, came just weeks after defending his Olympic lightweight double crown alongside Fintan McCarthy in Paris, is another glimpse into his inner workings. Row. Train. Race. Win. The Skibbereen way.
Paul O'Donovan celebrates his seventh - and latest - world title.
Instead of celebrating his Olympic success with some well-deserved downtine, Paul swapped his double for a single, pointed it towards the World Rowing Championships in St Catharines in Ontario and kept rowing faster than anyone else.
‘I always like racing in the single, I enjoy it, and after training so hard all year I was like I might as well hold myself together for another two weeks, stay out of the pub as much as possible, come here and get another regatta in,’ Paul explained to World Rowing after he landed in Canada.
There are shades of 2016 to his latest summer of glory. Eight years ago Paul cut short his celebrations after winning a silver medal at the Rio Olympics to fly to Amsterdam and win the World single scull title for the first time; that was the first of his seven World titles, four in the double (2018, ’19, ’22 and ’23) and now three in the single (2016, ’17 and ’24). Eight years on, it’s a similar story, though this time both medals that glisten are gold.
‘In 2016 a lot couldn’t understand why after the Olympics he did the World Championships instead of a holiday, but he went to Amsterdam and won as well. Then he went to Boston and raced the Head of the Charles. He likes racing,’ Swiss rower Michael Schmid told this paper ahead of the Paris Games.
‘Two years ago he came to race in Lucerne, straight from Australia, Paul was the only Irish boat at the regatta because he wanted to race.
‘Paul really likes racing, he is not afraid of racing.’
The Paul O’Donovan that rocked up to race at St Catharines is a rower who has nothing to prove to anyone. He has won it all. Multiple times. It’s why he’s a regular name in the ‘who is the greatest Irish sportsperson of all time’ conversations, his sensational success unmatched in Irish sport. But meeting or exceeding peoples’ expectations has never been Paul’s motivation, those conversations are outside of his control; he rows because he enjoys it.
That enjoyment doesn’t all come from the glory days on the grandest of stages, which are a couple each year, but more so from finding pleasure in the day-to-day grind that leads to the opportunity for magnificent moments like grasping his hardened hands around Olympic gold medals.
It’s always been fun, though. As kids, training with his older brother Gary, neighbour Shane O’Driscoll and friend Diarmuid O’Driscoll at the rowing club, causing war on the River Ilen as they chased the senior rowers. The rise to greatness, dotted with celebration bonfires at Kilkilleen Cross, like the Tuesday night in September 2015 after Paul and Gary qualified for the Rio Olympics. The homecoming in Skibbereen one year later on the most memorable Monday the town has ever seen. All fun, all enjoyable, and it still is – the man who, with Gary, manouevered a rowing machine into his attic at home in Lisheen so they could row as much as they wanted to has always found enjoyment in his sport. And last Saturday in Canada was the latest addition to his highlights reel.
Having eased through his heat and semi-final (the latter in the fastest time of the two semi-finals), and wearing the tag of favourite so lightly, there was an expectation Paul would prove he is the best in the world. And he did.
There’s an inevitably to him. Sixth after 500 metres of the final, though just one second covered all six rowers, he sat in second at the halfway stage, just over one second behind Greek rower Antonios Papakonstantinou, but poised to strike. And he did. Magnificently. There’s a beauty to his inevitably and ruthlessness.
Papakonstantinou, like so many more who share the water with Paul, simply had no answer to the Skibbereen superstar. Like in the Paris Games alongside Fintan, this race was won well before the end. Dominant. Paul won in 6:49.68, ahead of Papakonstantinou in 6:51.90, with Italy’s Niels Torre in third, in 6:52.64.
‘Very close in the first stages,’ Paul reflected afterwards.
‘(Papakonstantinou) took off and I was like, I better follow him, he's pretty dangerous...I had to go with him and I tracked him down in the end.
‘I got a little bit ahead and just kept working to avoid the sprint at the finish because I could see USA and Italy were fighting it out and closing down on the two of us. Happy to cross the line in the front position.’
Paul has a self-deprecating side, constantly playing down his achievements, but his triumphs on the water – whether alongside Fintan or Gary, or in a single – have elevated the Skibbereen rower to a height few, if any, Irish sportspeople have ever reached. Olympic great. World’s best. European champion. He has done it all, over and over again. And he’s only 30 years old, with the promise of more to come. As long as he enjoys it, Paul will keep pulling those strokes better than anyone else.
