BURNING SUNSHINE COOKING the dense air and two thousand gruelling metres of water stretching out ahead.
An on-form Dutch boat in periphery. A dangerous Romanian on the outskirts. The Americans in earshot.
The barriers.
Synchronicity, rhythm, repetition, concentration and endurance.
The tools.
The endline. Something greater than the 9-5. Redemption.
The goal.
Illness is never part of the plan but it reared its head this week.
It wasn’t just in Daire Lynch’s head but his coach, The Viper, convinced him it was. Philip Doyle, his boatmate, said it would be fine. They won their heats, and their semi-final, in the Double Sculls.
Just an Olympic final to go. Keep it in your head. Ignore the congestion. We can swap war stories later. Remember that time Philip fainted after a World Championship event.
“My turn,” laughs Daire as he admits today’s Olympic final was “definitely one of my hardest races”. White towel wrapped around the neck, ashen-faced and exhausted, he had left part of himself on the course.
Just 18 months ago, he was working 9-7 in a market research start-up in Manhattan. One morning, the Tipperary man decided there must be “more to life than this” and got back into rowing training proper.
A Yale University alumnus and 2021 European bronze medalist, the now 26-year-old used the gym in his apartment block, hitting the rowing machine twice daily as the job allowed.
A member of Clonmel Rowing Club, he soon returned home with Paris 2024 in his mind.
Doyle picks up the story. “He was coming back from New York and he wasn’t at his fittest, but then he just got fitter and faster, fitter and faster, and nobody else really had a chance to step into the boat.”
There is internal competition among rowers for spots on the boats that have qualified for the Olympic Games but Lynch and Doyle became such a tight pair, neither of their selections was ever in doubt.
And so it was Lynch who would join Doyle, now 30 and a doctor, as he returned to the Olympics after a 10th place finish in Tokyo.
“We’re yin and yang personalities but we’ve found the best way to match together and work off each other’s strengths,” the Banbridge athlete explains. “The things that I lack, he brings and the things that he lacks, I bring.
“I don’t know what they are, but it seems to work and we’ve had a great partnership over the last 15 months which has borne fruit again and again.”
Steady strokes at Le stade nautique de Vaires-sur-Marne showcased their chemistry, how they clicked.
But as they are wont to do, the Romanians made like Antoine Dupont down the sideline as the Dutch powered on in their ever-consistent way.
The Irish boat was in a steady fourth with 500m to go but Florian Enache and Andrei Sebastian Cornea weren’t blowing up as is also their wont.
Rerunning the final metres of the 6 minutes 15 seconds of the race, Doyle says, “So we had to go earlier than we thought… we knew we’d have to put more in than we had before. There was actually a bit of a wash the whole way down and a bit more of a headwind than we thought.
“We were being pushed a little bit over so we were kind of overworking one side. I’ve a bit of a neck thing – it’s been at me all year, really, and it just sort of then started seizing up.
“I kind of just lost the handle a little bit in one of the strokes and I looked at him and I was like, ‘Jesus, we better get going here’. The Americans were far enough back, we were moving on the Dutch but look, what can you do? You push yourself to the line, sometimes you fall over it but you manage to rectify the glitch.
“To be honest, I’m glad I put myself into the position where I had to make the mistake because if I hadn’t pushed as hard, maybe I would have felt good all the way down and come away fourth.”
Responding to the 29-degree heat, the rising lactic acid and the realisation it’s over, the pair slumped over their legs once the finish line had been crossed.
“So I think a little bit maybe was just relief,” Doyle says. “I think when we won the semi when we won the heat, there’s that great feeling of adrenaline. As you’re coming in, you know, you’ve got it in the bag, whereas there, you know, you’re looking, right?
“And you’re realising, I think during the week, you try and get something from each race. You build off it, you build off it. Whereas today, it was just a release almost, it was kind of a wave of positive and negative and relief and disappointment.”
They crossed the finish line in third, behind the Romanians and the Dutch.
“To be honest, today I honestly felt the best all week, so I thought we were going to have a good one,” Lynch said quietly, a tiny hint of disappointment with the colour of the metal shining on his torso.
But the longer the distance from the race and the water, the shinier the achievement seemed.
“I’ve always used that word redemption over the last few years,” said Doyle.
“It was great to stand by that [ambition] and to come to the biggest stage in the world for us and get it done.”
Just as they trained for, they did the exact same thing, at the exact same time, in the exact same rhythm for 2,000m. Their bodies ached under the burning sun but now they have something to show for it.
Written by Sinead O’Carroll and originally published on The 42 whose award-winning team produces original content that you won’t find anywhere else: on GAA, League of Ireland, women’s sport and boxing, as well as our game-changing rugby coverage, all with an Irish eye. Subscribe here.
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