Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy won Ireland’s first gold medal of the Tokyo Olympics on Thursday in the lightweight men’s double sculls at the Sea Forest Waterway.
It was Ireland’s first Olympic gold medal since 2012, its 10th in total, and its first in rowing.
According to an Irish Times report in blustery conditions, the 27-year-old O’Donovan and 24-year-old McCarthy set a time of 6min 6.43 seconds, finishing ahead of the German duo Jonathan Rommelmann and Jason Osborne. Italy claimed bronze.
The gold medal win followed the earlier bronze medal secured by the Irish women rowers in the coxless fours competition. The four are: Aifric Keogh, Eimear Lambe, Fiona Murtagh and Emily Hegarty.
The Irish duo trailed the Germans and Italians for much of the race but passed the Italians at the midway point before overtaking the Germans.
O'Donovan told RTÉ Sport: “The race plan we had, we do it all the time and it seems to work out OK for us. We kind of know that Italy and Germany always go hard, you can count on that. Then they slow down a bit. Once we were catching up to them, we knew that we were at a sustainable pace and kept going. You don’t really take in the history of the moment. You’d be well tired after the race.”
O’Donovan, from Skibbereen in West Cork, won silver in Rio five years ago along with with his brother Gary. He also has four world championship gold medals and two European gold medals.
In all, Skibbereen is contributing seven rowers to the Irish Olympic squad. The town, and others in West Cork, have been draped in flags and bunting in advance of the gold medal win.
