Banbridge rower Philip Doyle and his partner Daire Lynch claimed Double Sculls bronze for Ireland on the Seine.
The Romanian duo of Sebastian Cornea and Florian Enache claimed gold in a thrilling race, with Melvin Twellaar and Stef Broenink of the Netherlands hanging on for silver. Doyle and Lynch recorded a time of 6.15.17, less than three seconds behind the the winners. The Irish pair held off stiff competition from the American duo to win bronze.
“First heavyweight medal ever. Nice to write that into the history books,” said Doyle who was regretting the fact the Irish crew started their sprint for the line too early.
“I made a massive mistake at the end, I have to apologise to everyone. We were coming for the Dutch big time, could smell them, could sniff them. We knew these lads (Romania) were on another planet on the left hand side.
“We went earlier, we pushed harder through the middle to get through. We knew people would have something else. The mistake I made was combination of all the extra work we had to do in the middle.
“I could feel his (Lynch’s) legs going, we went early in our sprint. Thankfully we had enough actually to make the mistake and keep going. Another day, we’ll look back and see where we can improve for whatever comes next.”
Lynch did not expect Romania, who scraped through the semis, to manage to stay out in front.
“I think what the Romanians did we expected, but we didn’t think they’d hold on,” he said. “We were going toe to toe with the Dutch. We knew our sprint was a lot better than Americans.”
Doyle, a qualified Doctor from Banbridge, who has taken time off from his hospital job in Cork added: “I went to bed last night thinking we might win the thing to be honest but to be honest to come away with an Olympic medal you can never be disappointed. I made a little mistake there at the end; bit of a neck injury seized up on me in the last 100 metres but it’s because we pushed the body to the limit; it shows that you’re at the limit and luckily we had enough work done that we could recover and then come across the line.
“ I’m not sure we would have got the Dutch but maybe we would have put a bit more pressure on them and they would have made a mistake but you know, as I say this is the pinnacle, this is where you have to put it all on the line so we went at about 250m earlier than we usually do, pushed hard and made some calls.
“ There wasn’t even too many calls actually, I think we were just working off each other and feeling each other’s legs and it was just intuition the whole way down. Obviously in the double it’s about synchronicity and working together and there’s no point in somebody putting in 110% and somebody else putting in 90, you have to put in the exact 106 point whatever each and hope that it works out. We saw the Spanish drop back, we saw the others dropping back, we were wondering why the Romanians weren’t dropping back and they just had a stormer so yeah phenomenal! Phenomenal day, phenomenal course, great experience!’
Spain disputed the lead in the early stages with the European champions who led through the 500m mark in 1.32.59, with Ireland back in fifth place (1:35.39).
Coached by Fra Keane, Doyle and Lynch have formed a formidable partnership. In their very first regatta they finished fourth at the 2023 European Championships. They subsequently secured bronze medals in a World Cup event in Lucerne and more importantly at the World Championships. Doyle put his medical career on hold to have one last go at the Olympics, following a disappointing campaign in Tokyo three years ago.
More to follow