Back in July 2017, four years before the start of the postponed Tokyo Olympics, a promising young rower from Aughadown, a parish near Skibbereen, was asked in an interview with ‘The Southern Star’ how he and his twin brother, Jake, viewed the O’Donovan brothers.
We are not doing anything different to them, we are doing the same training, we are getting the same coaching from Dominic (Casey), so in theory we should be able to achieve what they are, eventually,” he said. “If they can do it, we feel we can do it.”
At the time, Fintan McCarthy was just 20, and 11 months before that the UCC student had watched in a bar in Skibbereen as the O’Donovans powered to a silver medal in the lightweight sculls in Rio. By 2017, the McCarthys were two of the most exciting talents in Irish rowing, their success appearing to prove the long-held belief of famed running coach Arthur Lydiard: “There are champions everywhere. Every street’s got them.”
Still, the idea that two brothers who grew up in Foherlagh, a few kilometres north of the O’Donovans’ home in Lisheen, could achieve the same success seemed a longshot. But that statistical improbability is slowly coming to pass.
A month out from the Olympics, the pairing of Paul and Gary O’Donovan that captured the hearts of the nation in 2016 is no more, at least in a competitive sense. Instead, Paul will be joined by Fintan McCarthy in the quest for success on the ultimate stage.
Since Ireland became an independent country, just six athletes have returned from the Games with gold: Pat O’Callaghan, Bob Tisdall, Ronnie Delany, Michael Carruth, Michelle Smith and Katie Taylor. On July 29, in the early hours of a Thursday morning, Irish-time, there seems every chance McCarthy and O’Donovan will add their names to that list.
The story of the latter is well-known – the 27-year-old doctor who shot to fame with that Olympic silver in Rio, which he followed with the world lightweight single sculls title in Rotterdam. Since then he has added the 2017 world title in single sculls and two world titles in double sculls – the first with his brother Gary, the second with McCarthy.
The latter is a name relatively few still know outside of rowing circles, despite that world title, but his is a face that could well be splashed across front pages next month.
It seems a good time to get to know his story.
McCarthy began rowing in primary school, where once a week the fourth, fifth or sixth-class students were taken to Skibbereen to give it a try. The sport has a stronger foothold in the area than perhaps anywhere in the world, the inner workings of its talent factory brilliantly detailed in Kieran McCarthy’s book, Something in the Water.
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After about a year Fintan drifted from rowing, drawn more by the allure of team sports, but he was the first to admit he was “really bad” at them. When he returned at the age of 15 he started getting the kind of feedback from coaches at Skibbereen Rowing Club that leaves a strong imprint on an impressionable mind.
“I hadn’t been any good at anything before that,” he told the Rowing Ireland podcast. “So when people said I might be good it was exciting – that’s what got me hooked.”
As his brother Jake witnessed his rapid progression in fitness, he also left behind team sports and joined him. In 2014 Fintan made his international debut and, the following year, he competed in the lightweight single sculls at the World U-23 Championships.
He won his first national title in 2016 and competed in a lightweight quad at that year’s World Championships, the first of many fifth-place finishes he racked up at major events. In that quad, he learned from the likes of Mark O’Donovan and Shane O’Driscoll just what was required – the true depth of the daily grind, the chronic commitment to dizzying fatigue.
During his Leaving Cert year, McCarthy rose at ungodly hours to put in sessions before school, and he remembers one of those early championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, where he came up short of a medal. He was sitting in a restaurant with his father, who asked him whether he really wanted to keep doing this.
“I was like, ‘yeah, obviously,’” Fintan recalled saying.
During his first year at UCC, he’d snag a lift to Skibbereen with former world champion Sinéad Jennings and absorb what wisdom he could during those journeys. He teamed up with Jake in 2017 and went into the double sculls final at the 2018 World U-23 Championships as medal contenders, a race he described as “an absolute disaster”.
By 2019 they were out into the daunting world of senior rowing but they looked right at home on that stage, finishing fifth in the European final in Switzerland. On the build-up to the World Championships in Austria later that year, Fintan outperformed both his brother and Gary O’Donovan in trials to earn a place in the double sculls alongside Paul, the pair powering to gold.
O’Donovan is only three years older than McCarthy but there remains a gulf between them in experience. “He’s really cool and calm under pressure, it’s something I needed to improve on,” said McCarthy.
It was exemplified by a conversation they had before that world final.
“He said, ‘we’ll probably be a bit behind off the start,’” recalled McCarthy. “‘But we should come through and win then.’”
McCarthy was taken aback by O’Donovan’s calm but firm confidence, but that was exactly how it played out, with McCarthy’s parents, sister and brother all there to witness his feat.
The same pairing started this year as they mean to go on, with a dominant win over their chief Olympic rivals at the Europeans back in April, O’Donovan and McCarthy doing it their usual way: steady start, strong middle and a blazing finish.
The level will go up a notch at the Olympics, even if the same crews are lined up alongside them, but McCarthy has built enough strength, power and – critically – experience to join O’Donovan in the pantheon of Irish Olympic greats.
On that podcast last year he was asked about his biggest goal in rowing.
“Olympic gold,” he said.
Such hopes are bandied about so often that in most cases, they rank somewhere between hopeful ambition and downright delusion. But for McCarthy, that’s not the case. It looks more like a realistic intention.
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Irish rowers going for glory in Tokyo
Lightweight men’s double scull (LM2X): Fintan McCarthy, Paul O’Donovan, *Gary O’Donovan.
Likely the strongest gold-medal chance of the Games for Ireland, McCarthy and Paul O’Donovan are the men to beat as the reigning world and European champions.
Women’s single (W1X): Sanita Puspure. A two-time world champion, the 39-year-old hasn’t been at her best so far in 2021 but has the class to conquer all if she can get things right in Tokyo.
Men’s double scull (M2X): Ronan Byrne, Philip Doyle, *Daire Lynch.
Byrne and Doyle won silver at the 2019 World Championships and a runner-up finish at the World Rowing Cup in Lucerne this year proved they’re true medal contenders.
Women’s four (W4-): Emily Hegarty, Fiona Murtagh, Eimear Lambe, Aifric Keogh, *Tara Hanlon.
This same quartet won silver at the Europeans this year and secured their spot in Tokyo in Lucerne last month.
Women’s pair (W2-): Monika Dukarska, Aileen Crowley.
This pair won silver at the Rowing World Cup last month and secured their Olympic berth with a second-place finish in the ‘B’ final at the 2019 World Championships.
Lightweight women’s double scull (LW2X): Aoife Casey, Margaret Cremen, *Lydia Heaphy.
Aoife is daughter of renowned Skibbereen coach Dominic Casey, and together with Cremen secured a spot with third at May’s last qualifier in Lucerne. *Reserve