WITH TRADEMARK AND magnificent understatement, here’s how Paul O’Donovan describes how his and his brother Gary’s lives were changed by their rocketing to a stardom endorsed by Graham Norton. 

“You’d be a bit more pressed for time. And sometimes you might cut a training session short here or there.” 

It’s four years since the brothers cut through the water and almost all the field to win silver at the Rio Olympics, and while it’s accepted that achievement has changed Irish rowing, they are pretty sure it hasn’t changed them. 

“The fundamentals of our lives are still very much the same”, says Paul. “We both mostly do rowing and a bit of college and studying on the side.” 

“I think our lives are more similar compared to our peers”, adds Gary. “I’m still doing the same thing: going to the rowing club every day, training hard. I’ve been doing that for 19 years. Whereas other friends would be getting jobs and mortgages, this type of thing.

“It’s nice. We’re still like a child going out to the rowing club in the mornings.” 

What also remains the same is the fact Gary and Paul O’Donovan are an interviewers’ dream.

You’ll find that same rhythm they show on the water in their talk: they speak across each other but almost never over each other; each glides easily into the other’s brief pauses as if even speech not moving constantly forward is against their nature. 

An example: I ask whether they considered themselves celebrities in Rio’s hectic aftermath.

Paul: “Not really, no.”

Gary: “I’d be like, ‘Sure I’m just Gary from Skibbereen.’”

Paul: “You’d be getting a bit annoyed then, as people do recognise you on the street and would tell you you’re a celebrity, and you’d be telling them, ‘Jesus, I’m not!’ I’d say -”

Gary: “I’m an athlete!”

I then mangle my metaphors by asking what keeps them grounded, these guys who spend much of their day floating on water.

Gary: “Sure are we grounded?”

Paul: “Probably not, like.”

Gary: “We’re completely delusional, like! You’re probably sitting there rolling your eyes, ‘These lunatics! Grounded?’”

They certainly have not been swept away by their own celebrity. Instead, the frenzy that met their success has only renewed their love of a lonely sport. 

“We’ve had these experiences and done a bit of partying, but after doing that we realised that while it’s fun to be out there partying, we were happier doing the rowing”, says Paul. We knew then to curtail that and do as much training as we could.

“We’ve had a few different experiences with television and the media and this type of thing. It was good fun to do it and you meet some different people and learn about some different aspects of life, but what it confirmed to us is that we really enjoyed what we are doing, despite having these other experiences.

“If we didn’t have any of those experiences we’d still be training away wondering, ‘Jesus, is there anything else outside of life that we’d like to be doing?’” 

Right now they are back training. And training. And training. 

They say they were largely unruffled by the postponement of the Olympic Games and quickly adapted their training regime, spending the initial stages of the lockdown working out with weights and on rowing machines while access to the club was closed. They have been back on the water since restrictions eased, however, and have trained as they would – and will – during the winter, ahead of next year’s Olympics. 

Not that they are yet guaranteed a spot in Tokyo. The Irish boat has qualified but those sitting in it have yet to be determined. The consensus earlier this year was that Paul was ahead of the pack with a race on to join him. Gary is in the mix, of course, along with Shane O’Driscoll and twins Fintan and Jake McCarthy. 

Paul plays down the notion he is guaranteed his place – “My seat is still up for grabs and I could lose it if I’m not careful” – and Gary points out just how competitive it is, this race to race.

“There are five lightweight men trying to get into the boat for the Olympics, and four of the five are world champions.” 

Incredibly, all five are from Skibbereen.

In spite of the high stakes, both insist the atmosphere among the quintet is good, perhaps aided by the fact that rowing can be cast solely as a battle between you and a remorseless clock. 

“I’d say if you came down for a day you wouldn’t think there’s anything unusual”, says Gary.

“It’s just a bunch of lads going out training and doing their own thing. We don’t really think too much about the stakes and what’s on the line. You break it down, ‘What do I need to do to get into it?’ We have the coach and he gives us guidance and the programme and helps us out but it’s all up to ourselves to train hard and be as fast as we can.”

“Because we’re all friends you don’t want to disrupt someone else’s training either”, adds Paul, “because it’s just not a nice thing to do in life: to disrupt a friend’s chances.” 

Still, it remains a possibility that one of the brothers will race in Tokyo without the other. Does that worry them, given it surely means more to race with your brother? 

Paul: “It doesn’t make much difference, to be honest.

Gary: “If you’re winning a race, it doesn’t matter who’s sitting there.” 

Neither will race at the rescheduled European Championships in October, and will instead spend the winter training and racing at domestic assessments. 

They have taken the disruption of the pandemic and the disappointment of the Olympic postponement in their stride, with Gary saying at one point during our interview that “it was one of the best summers ever, knocking about there on the water.” 

What is it about the water, then? What keeps pulling them back? 

Gary first. 

“When I was a kid going rowing, I used to be so excited in the car driving to the rowing club. I still get flashes of that, and I don’t know why. I’d be driving to the rowing club in the morning and I get really excited. The bit of adrenaline when you’re racing down the river against all the lads and the girls, when the sun is shining…there’s just something about it. It’s hard to put my finger on it, but I’m still as excited now to go rowing s I was when I was a kid.” 

And Paul? 

“You couldn’t pin it down to any one thing, there’s the competitive edge, trying to win things and do the best you can, but there’s also the day-to-day process of things. There’s a good group of lads there and we enjoy hanging out with them.

“And doing the sport itself on a nice, beautiful calm day out on the water in the summer: it’s gorgeous. There’s nothing like it in the world.” 

Some of the rest of us might strive for a kind of celebrity and fame, but in days as anxious and unpredictable as these, that level of total and distant immersion in sport is truly something to be envied. 

Irish Olympic medallists Paul and Gary O’Donovan Paul were speaking as part of Team Visa in Ireland. Visa is the Worldwide Payment Technology Partner of the Olympic Games and has announced its commitment to the 90+ Team Visa athletes, offering them the opportunity to extend their relationship with Visa though 2021.