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Olympics

'Dream come true stuff' | McCarthy and O'Donovan on Olympic gold

Ireland's latest Olympic gold medallists are taking it all in their stride. Skibbereen duo Fintan...



'Dream come true stuff' | McCa...
Olympics

'Dream come true stuff' | McCarthy and O'Donovan on Olympic gold

Ireland's latest Olympic gold medallists are taking it all in their stride.

Skibbereen duo Fintan McCarthy and Paul O'Donovan won yesterday's lightweight double sculls final in memorable fashion.

In doing so, they won Ireland's first gold of this year's games - and just a tenth ever.

Reacting to their success on Newstalk Breakfast this morning, the pair said the significance has yet to sink in.

"We just packed the suitcase and that type of thing," Paul said when asked about any celebrations last night in Tokyo.

Looking ahead to their return to Cork this weekend, Fintan says he is looking forward to celebrating with his family.

"Definitely in our house anyway there'll be a few celebratory dinners and drinks and all that stuff, I'd say they're buzzing!"

Pressure

Expected to compete strongly for a medal, Paul said the perceived pressure on the pair did not have any impact.

"No it didn't put any pressure on us at all, I don't see why it would put pressure on us," he said of the favourites tag.

"I don't understand why people think that because you're good it makes it harder to win...if anything if you're the favourite you should be confident because you should be the best going into it and the pressure is on your opponents then."

Experience

Analysing the race itself, O'Donovan said they always felt they had enough stamina to see off the challenge of Germany and other contenders.

"We've been saying to ourselves yesterday we were pretty pleased with our start and that's usually the worst of our race.

"We put an awful amount of effort into it so we were up there with the Germans and Italians.

"We've done so many races now over the years, both together and not together and we'd be good at judging our own efforts and how things are going and budgeting how much energy we had left.

"Coming through the second half of the race we were sitting there level with the germans and I think we'd have known ourselves if we need to we have a bit more in reserve to put in a big dig then at the finish and we did manage to that,

"We know the Germans style, that they like to lead from the front, and this past year then they've been making a big burst in the third 500 metres.

"When they weren't really putting massive distance into us at that stage we kind of knew they wouldn't have too much to give at the end."

Reflecting on their wider Olympics experience, Fintan concluded that it had been 'amazing'.

"It's been amazing to be honest, obviously when you're younger you'd be daydreaming about it so to be here is unreal and winning the medal was the cherry on top, dream come true stuff."

Indeed are proud to support Team Ireland at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Indeed believes the world works better when people are given every opportunity to unleash their true talents. #TalentUnleashed

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Fintan McCarthy Gold Medal Olympics Paul O'Donovan Rowing Team Ireland Tokyo