Try as they might to play it down, to bat away any pressure or expectation, Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy can’t hide from it anymore – not after a performance like this.
The Cork duo will start favourites for gold in Friday’s lightweight double sculls A final in Paris after a commanding semi-final win this morning where they looked back to their imposing, imperious best, powering to victory at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium in 6:21.88.
So, underdogs no more?
“We still are,” said O’Donovan, tongue firmly in cheek. “That was a big upset today. Everything we’ve thrown at (the Swiss) all year, they’ve had an answer to but today, we got one up at them. The number one seeds (are) Italy – we haven’t beaten them all year.”
Golden night in Paris
McCarthy had struggled with injury and illness earlier in the year but said the pre-Olympic training camp had gone “really well”, adding: “The last two months have been some of the best training we’ve ever done.” It showed in the race, the Irish coming home 2.43 seconds clear of Switzerland (6:24.31) and Czechia (6:25.99).
They got off to a typically conservative start, passing 500m in third just behind France and Switzerland. But in the second quarter they asserted their supremacy, drawing half a length clear of Swiss pair Jan Schaeuble and Raphael Ahumada, who’d beaten them at the World Cup II in Lucerne in May.
McCarthy said after the heat that he and O’Donovan are “way fitter” now and "haven’t even had one day off since" that race in Lucerne where they finished third, with Italy taking victory. In the latter part of the semi-final today – an area in which they’ve so long been indomitable – O’Donovan and McCarthy put clear water between themselves and Switzerland.
It’s likely the biggest challenge in the final will come from Italy’s Stefano Oppo and Gabriel Soares, who took victory in the second semi-final in 6:22.85 – almost a second down on Ireland’s time.
“I felt good with the performance, the legs are feeling strong, we were moving the boat well on training camp and we’d a lot of fatigue in the legs then,” said O’Donovan. “We’re very much looking forward to Friday. I think it will be a tough race.”
Elsewhere, it was another huge morning for Irish rowing as two other boats advanced into A finals, making it four in total given Philip Doyle and Daire Lynch had already qualified for tomorrow’s medal race in the double sculls.
Ross Corrigan and Nathan Timoney got the Irish off to a flying start by finishing third in their men’s pair semi-final in 6:32.22. Needing a top-three finish to advance, the Enniskillen pair went out hard, passing 500m in front and hitting halfway in second.
But they came under pressure in the third quarter, slipping back to third and having to repel a late surge from New Zealand. However, the Irish pair changed gears in the final few hundred metres to hold on behind Romania (6:29.86) and Great Britain (6:31.56).
“We knew we had to go out harder than we had in the heats,” said Corrigan. “We knew we’d suffer a bit in the second half and in the last 250, obviously the Kiwis were coming, but we could react and we executed that pretty well. We were holding on for dear life in the last 150.”
They become the first ever Irish pair to reach an Olympic final. “We’re obviously buzzed, excited, but the job’s not done,” said Timoney. “We’re going to go for that medal, a gold medal – it’s all or nothing for us.”
In the lightweight women’s double sculls, Aoife Casey and Mags Cremin produced a storming last quarter to overhaul France – the Olympic silver medallists in Tokyo – and take the third qualifying spot for the A final. Casey and Cremin were in fourth at 1000m and 1500m but changed gears in the last stretch to advance to the medal decider, clocking 6:59.72 behind Romania (6:56.65) and Greece (6:57.90).
“Our focus was to get out of the start strong, get into our race pace and then you’re just thinking of (getting) one split faster to put yourselves in the right position for the sprint,” said Casey. “We’re really excited to have achieved our goal of the A final and super excited for Friday, to see what we can leave on the water.”
There was bitter disappointment, however, for women’s pair Fiona Murtagh and Aifric Keogh, who finished sixth in their semi-final. They had finished fourth in last year’s World Championships but were well off the pace from the outset here, already over five seconds down on the top three spots which they needed to finish in to advance to the A final.
They couldn’t turn things around in the second half, coming home at the back of the field in 7:32.97, 18 seconds behind the winners Australia, and will now race the B final on Friday morning.
