‘We’re both a bit quiet and shy... we don’t say much between each other’: In the boat with Olympic rowers Paul O'Donovan and Fintan McCarthy
Hoping to defend their gold title at the Olympic Games in Paris next month, the Cork duo chart the course of their success and what it takes to be the best
On the water with Cork’s Olympic rowers
Initially, it is tricky to tell if Paul O’Donovan is annoyed about being interviewed, or simply shy to the point of taciturn. Our photographer is just finishing taking his and Fintan McCarthy’s portraits as I arrive to the National Rowing Centre, set beside Inniscarra Lake in Co Cork, where the two men spend most of their days preparing for next month’s Paris Olympics. It’s been raining on and off all morning, and they’re grabbing a last dry moment.
McCarthy is all smiles, a younger looking Matt Damon — yes, people do tell him that all the time, he admits with a grin. O’Donovan smiles more tightly and looks at me almost suspiciously. There is a marked difference from the O’Donovan of post Rio 2016 and Graham Norton Show fame; the videos that reached viral status in which he and his older brother Gary joked about pizzas, urine sample tests, and, most famously, how rowing is simply a matter of getting from A to B, “pulling like a dog”. In those earlier videos, O’Donovan seemed relaxed, happy, smiling and enjoying himself as he and Gary made each other laugh. Look at later videos, however, and he’s a different person. Terse, almost monosyllabic.
