Olympic champion Paul O’Donovan has no interest in celebrity, only winning

If the pair had tried to sketch out a scene like the one at Dublin Airport after Paris 2024, they could not have scripted it so perfectly.
Double gold medallists Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy, in keeping with their ego-free image of harsh training regimes and spartan living, planned to get the bus from the airport back to Cork before a man called Ciaran, who sat beside them on the plane, struck up a conversation.
The slow journey home by bus became a free ride from a stranger. It’s not hard to imagine the conversation dovetailing with the Olympic champions’ guiding principles of a frill-free existence. “Sure stick the bags in the boot lads, there’s plenty of room. I’m going that way anyway.”
None of it would have been known had Dublin Airport not put it out on their social media. “Private jet? Limo? How would you travel home if you’d just won Olympic gold?!” it asked.
But that brief, everyday explanation of a chance meeting, cemented the image of the two best lightweight rowers on the planet as conspicuously ordinary, something a thousand ad campaigns could never have achieved. At least in Paul’s case it is a world seen through the prism of his home in Lisheen and the grounding doctrine of community and local identity.
O’Donovan, who has been an Olympian for longer than McCarthy, initiated the image back in Rio when he and his brother Gary came out with the attenuated explanation of how to win an Olympic silver medal: “pull like a dog.”
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In scraping away the physics and complexities of modern rowing and what makes a boat go fast through water, an instant connection was made with those baffled or bored by the granular detail of physiology.
The phrase also deflected from their own success as history was made in Rio. Sean Drea’s fourth place in Montreal 1976 and the lightweight coxless four in 1996 of Neville Maxwell, Tony O’Connor, Derek Holland and Sam Lynch could be left to lie.
McCarthy replaced Gary in the boat and silver became gold in Tokyo. Still Paul, with his Paleo look of lean body, ragged beard and long hair, seemed almost neglectful in appearance but firmed up a personality that saw celebrity trappings for what they were – something to be suspicious of, something to avoid.
All along he was studying to become a doctor, combining the intensity of medical training with being a World Champion and medal winner at three Olympic Games. Credibly construed as a kind of homage to discipline and time management, in Paris O’Donovan called their second gold medal win a fluke.
“I think, you know, a few moments of magic, a few good rowing partners, a bit of Dominic Casey’s [Skibbereen coach] magic and until you can repeat like that, I think it’s a fluke until proven otherwise,” he said.
No longer bearded or with unkempt hair, and away from the din and attention of the Olympics, O’Donovan has quietly slipped away to St Catharines, Ontario hoping to add a World Championship gold medal to the six he has already won going back to Rotterdam in 2016.
Two of the wins have been in single sculls and four in double sculls. Alone this time he has a semi-final on Friday, and will go into it with the second fastest qualifying time.
If he can win in Canada, it will be a repeat of 2016, when he moved to the World Championships in the Netherlands two weeks after Rio to win his first lightweight single sculls title. Winning is what Ireland has come to expect from the 30-year-old, now the most successful Irish athlete at world level in any sport.
Even so, the impression given when the pair came up from their boat at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium in Paris draped in a tricolour and visibly less excited than those fussing around them asking the questions, the idea of another Olympics was not shot down by McCarthy, with O’Donovan instantly declaring it his next goal.
“I think over a period of time I’ll be looking to get into the open weight squad for LA for sure,” said the man whose uniquely effective technique would never be taught to younger rowers.
If O’Donovan wins in Canada, you can be sure he will slip back to Ireland head down, deflecting praise, downsizing the achievement. Being humble is about being real, not detached but belonging to a world where pulling back the curtain just a little bit to let the light shine in is more comfortable than basking in the limelight.
He understands how exceptional his career has been so far, is intelligent enough to navigate the social norms and carefully measure the value of modesty against his generational talent and unmatched success. He has learned to step into a boat as a king and off it as just another rower.
That is the way he rolls – public transport and an Olympic gold medal in his back pocket.