Paul O'Donovan and Fintan McCarthy crowned back-to-back Olympic rowing champions

IRISH ROWING SUPERSTARS Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy cemented their status as the best lightweight double sculls crew in the world as they sealed back-to-back Olympic titles in Paris.

Friday morning’s victory sees O’Donovan make history as the first Irish athlete ever to win medals at three Olympic Games.

The Skibbereen duo turned up the heat in the second half of the race to take gold in 6:10.99 ahead of Italy’s Stefano Oppo and Gabriel Soares (6:13.33), who pipped Greece’s Antonios Papakonstantinou and Petros Gaidatzis in a photo finish (6:13.44).

Oppo and Soares set a ferocious early pace in Friday morning’s final at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Centre, prompting Papakonstantinou and Gaidatzis to make an early push of their own to edge in front.

Defending champions O’Donovan and McCarthy sat between the duelling pair, biding their time before slowly dialling up their stroke rate as the race approached the half-way mark.

From there, the destination of the gold appeared a formality as O’Donovan and McCarthy showed the power and stamina that has made them the undisputed kings of this class in recent years.

They had more than two seconds to spare over the field at the finish line, while Oppo and Soares had just enough left in the tank to clinch silver on the final stroke.

“No-one believed we could do it coming into this competition,” O’Donovan told RTÉ  afterwards. “Against all the odds, we stuck with it and trained hard.

“We’re very happy to have proved the doubters wrong. It’s a good day for the Irish.”

McCarthy said: “We had a rocky enough season — well, I did, Paul’s obviously been consistent as hell throughout the whole year.

“I was trying to keep under wraps the nerves and the doubts but coming out for the final, there were no nerves. We had some really good rounds and I really felt like we were back at our best for this race.” 

He added: “It’s just been a crazy journey the last few years and honestly the privilege of a lifetime to be rowing with Paul and under Dominic [Casey, coach] for my whole rowing career.

“It’s amazing.”