“I’ll have to buy some small T-shirts or something,” says Fintan McCarthy, jesting about his pending transformation from double Olympic lightweight rowing champion to bulking it up alongside the bigger boys in the boat.
It won’t be a complete metamorphosis or anything like it. Every Olympic cycle is found somewhere in spin, and five months after his gold medal success in Paris with Paul O’Donovan – defending their title won in Tokyo three years previously – McCarthy has already moved onwards and upwards, given lightweight rowing is not part of the Los Angeles Games in 2028.
So, starting with the European Championships at the end of May, then the World Rowing Championships in China in September, McCarthy is now aiming for heavyweight glory. Whether that’s with O’Donovan or a different boat entirely is still uncertain, only there’s no turning back now.
“Obviously I love lightweight rowing, but it’s not an Olympic sport any more, so trying something new,” McCarthy says, speaking in Dublin at the announcement of Allianz as the new top sponsor of the Olympic Federation of Ireland and Paralympics Ireland for LA.
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“It’s just better to start to developing in those Olympic boat classes, race the guys and see what’s possible. Obviously there are a lot of unknowns at the moment, but I’m just focusing on getting as fast as I can, and if I’m good enough to be in a boat, then I know what I can bring.”
As a lightweight, McCarthy couldn’t exceed 72.5kg in competition (for the doubles, the average weight had to be 70kg). Looking impeccably lean, he tells me he’s walking around now at around 79kg. You do the maths.
“In theory, it should make us better. You can do a bit more training, so it should work out, as long as we keep the technique good, and don’t get too fat, basically.
“I used [to] give Paul a kilo, so it will be a big change for me. The main thing will be the lead up to competition. Usually that’s governed by how much you can fuel, how much training you’re trying to do based on how much weight you’re trying to lose. So not having that, I imagine, will be advantageous. It will depend solely on the preparation, rather than taking body-weight manipulation strategies into account.”
McCarthy turned 28 in November, O’Donovan turns 31 in April, the Skibbereen duo both still plenty young for LA. O’Donovan made Irish Olympic history in Paris as the first athlete to win three medals at three separate Games, and although back concentrating for now on his medical career, he is poised to move up alongside the big boys too.
For McCarthy the decision to continue into another Olympic cycle was not immediately straightforward, and ultimately came with a greater understanding and appreciation of what it means to be Olympic champion, at least compared to some of the expectations he put on himself post-Tokyo.
“Post-Paris, I took a bit of a step back for a few months,” he says, living in Dublin for a few months for a complete change of scenery too. “I started tipping away again November time, panicked a bit after Christmas and went to Seville for a training camp, and I’ve been back into the swing of it now down in Cork. And improving, to be fair, closing in on what is usually normal for me.”
“But I loved Paris so much, and everything that’s come after it. We’ve had some hard family stuff after it [his uncle Will died in September, at age 49], but even the fact we had Paris as a family, I was glad I was able to contribute that to the memory.
“And I am a bit more relaxed with it, all I have to do is just be myself, and not try to be whatever people think an Olympic champion is. I’m just showcasing an Olympic champion is anyone, could be anyone.”
There have been some other changes since Paris too, with Antonio Maurogiovanni no longer the head of high performance at Rowing Ireland, his contract not renewed beyond 2024 despite overseeing four Olympic medals, 11 world and five European Championship gold medals since 2017.
Maurogiovanni did have his critics, including a Paris review where former world champion and the now retired Sanita Puspure highlighted the sometimes unreasonable demands placed on the rowers and the dysfunctional selection policy.
“We were pretty much totally separate from the heavyweight programme. We do train really hard, and it comes from us as well as Dominic [Casey, the lightweight rowing coach]. I’ve never felt I’ve been forced or pressured into doing anything, we actually lead a lot of the training on our side, it’s pretty enjoyable and obviously brings us a lot of success.”
