BY KIERAN McCARTHY
AOIFE Casey planned to make use of the three-and-a-half-hour aircoach from Dublin Airport to Cork on Tuesday evening by watching as many of the Olympic rowing finals as she could, including her own.
The Skibbereen rower and Mags Cremen finished a brilliant fifth in the A final of the lightweight women’s double sculls at the Paris Games – and fifth place was the position they held at 500m, halfway and 1500m. As Great Britain (6:47.06), Romania (6:48.78) and Greece (6:49.28) finished in the medal positions, New Zealand were in fourth (6:51.65), followed by the Irish boat in 6:54.57, ahead of the USA who were a further second back.
Qualifying for the Olympic final and finishing fifth is a notable improvement on the Tokyo Games when the Irish double was eighth overall.
‘I’m really happy,’ Aoife told The Southern Star, ‘just so proud of our performance because we did our best and that’s all you can do.
‘It is bittersweet because everyone wants a medal, but we left it all on the course on Friday. Even though we’re not coming away with a medal, we’re coming away with such good memories for life,’ added the Skibbereen rower, who was blown away by the huge support at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium that hosted the Olympic rowing. Half of Skibbereen, it seems, had made the trip to Paris for these Games.
‘The roar of the crowd, it was unbelievable. The noise, it was like a volcano erupted,’ Aoife explained.
‘After the halfway mark, the sound got louder and louder and louder, and when you’re dying in the last 500 metres and trying to squeeze everything you can out of yourself, that support makes such a difference. It was unbelievable to race in such an event, to be honest.’
Aoife joked that she wished the Olympics was every year, not every four, as these spectacular Games are on a different level to her first, the Covid-affected Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
‘This time you can really appreciate the magnitude of the Olympics – it’s been incredible to be part of it,’ she said, and soaking in the experience is one of the reasons that by Tuesday Aoife hadn’t watched any of the Olympic rowing races, including her own.
‘I am a rower, but I am also a rowing fan so I love watching all the races back,’ she explained, and that was the plan for this week. She’ll enjoy the Irish women’s lightweight double’s semi-final performance when they finished third to earn one of the six places in the A final – qualifying for the medal race was a huge target for the all-Cork crew.
‘It was always in our capabilities to get to the A final and we had such a good race in the semi-final too,’ she said.
‘Because of the disappointment of last year’s World Rowing Championships when we didn’t make the A final, we knew this semi-final was so important, to make sure we got into the final. We had a good performance then, and we carried that momentum into the final.’
With lightweight rowing no longer part of the Olympics, Aoife and Mags – and, of course, their coach Dominic – wanted to make sure they went out in style. Mission accomplished.
‘I suppose making the final was such a big goal for us but then when you’re in the final, the expectations of yourselves gets more and more. We definitely did our best every single stroke and were really proud of our result,’ Mags explained afterwards, and with that boxed ticked, the Irish rowing team swapped the hotel beside the rowing course where they were staying for the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris which became their base over the weekend.
‘It’s been an unbelievable experience,’ Aoife added, and the temptation is there to board a flight back to Paris for the closing ceremony on Sunday night, to rejoin the rowing gang who have stayed on in the French capital this week.
A few days back home in Skibb are needed, Aoife laughed, and perhaps there will have been a quiet moment where she has been able to reflect on her own journey to becoming a two-time Olympian and an Olympic finalist.
Never not at it, as she says herself, Aoife starts a Masters in Bioscience, Innovation and Enterprise at University College London in September so the accommodation hunt is also underway.
Busy times lie ahead, just how Aoife likes it.
