FINTAN McCARTHY HAS said he and Paul O’Donovan will have to “put a plan together” for how they will make the step up to heavyweight. 

The lightweight class in which the pair won gold medals in Paris and Tokyo is no longer an Olympic event. The Co Cork rowers will have to move up to heavyweight if they are to challenge for a third gold medal together in LA 2028.   

“We’ve probably been thinking about it already,” McCarthy said at Dublin Castle today. 

“I don’t think any of us are finished with the sport and the only events left in the Olympics are heavyweight events so we will have to put a plan together for how we are going to tackle that.

“It’s been done very well by some people in the past but it has also been done wrong so I think we need to have a look at what’s worked for others and what’s worked for us as well in the past because there’s not a huge difference between us and the heavyweights.

“Maybe a bit of continuing where we are going right and cleaning up the other parts – and then obviously not having to weigh in two hours before the race as well.”

McCarthy said having to weigh in at 69kg “does get restrictive” and if he was not cutting weight he would “probably sit around the 75-76kg mark”. 

The 27-year-old said there are examples of competitors who have made the jump to heavyweight and done well. 

“There have been some guys, we’re quite close with the Spanish guys (Rodrigo Conde Romero and Aleix García Pujolar), they used to race against us as lightweights and I think they were fifth or sixth in the heavyweight final,” McCarthy said.  

“So we’ve kind of had a few conversations with them, or I have, and we kind of train with Phil (Doyle) and Daire (Lynch) a lot of the time anyway and we’re not, we’re similar speeds, so I don’t think it’s going to be a huge jump. 

“Had lightweight not been removed, I probably would have continued with that so it’s nice to be kind of forced into a new challenge. It’s exciting.”