Philip Doyle says a prayer before the start of every race.
Today was no different as he and his partner Daire Lynch waited at the start for the final of the men’s double sculls at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium.
The wide view was this pair were on the cusp of something special after winning their heat and semi-final at the Paris Olympics.
In a more personal view, Doyle was also keeping the memory of his late father Eamonn, who passed away nine years ago, close to him as he always does.
An Olympic bronze medal was dedicated to his dad’s memory.
“Yeah, he’s always in your thoughts. I only just started my rowing career and brought back my first medal to him in the hospice in Newry,” admitted Doyle, from Banbridge, Co Down.
“I always say a little prayer on the start line, not to him, but just to whoever’s out there listening. I always take a little bit of solace from it. I know he’s not going to push me down the course but it’s great to do something in somebody’s memory, no matter what way it is.”
This brutally tough race asked tougher questions of Doyle and Lynch. Doyle went through the fright of nearly dropped his oar with 50m remaining.
So that rush of relief was thrown into the pot of emotions when the pair crossed the line in third place to win Ireland’s fourth medal of these Olympic Games.
Gold went to surprise winners Romania with favourites the Netherlands beaten into second.
“I nearly dropped the flipping oar with 50m to go, so I think a little bit maybe was just relief. But 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,” he said.
“Whereas there, you’re looking around and you realise today it was just a release almost. It was kind of a wave of positive and negative and relief and disappointment,” Doyle continued.
“You can stand up and jump around, but if you’re doing that, you probably could have done more during the race.”
That was on view when the pair pulled-in to get out of the boat. While Doyle managed to raise his arms in response to the strong Irish support in the stand, when he reached his hand in to help Lynch out, Lynch couldn’t move on the first time of asking.
“Still a bit shook to be honest. That was a very, very tough race and we had to rush straight to the medal ceremony as well. So, feeling better now, and it will sink in,” a smiling Lynch revealed.
“I’d say there were plenty of family friends over in the crowd, so it’s going to be great to see them.”
The machinations of this race didn’t exactly go the way they expected.
“We had to go earlier than we thought so we had to put more in. Well, we knew we’d have to put more in than we had before. So there was actually a bit of a wash the whole way down and a bit more of a headwind than we thought. So we were being pushed a little bit over and this neck thing has been at me all year, really, and it just sort of then started seizing up,” Doyle explained.
“We were on the red line and then I kind of just lost the handle a little bit in one of the strokes and I looked and I was like, ‘please, not too much left. Where are you going here?’.
“We were moving on the Dutch but look, what can you do? You push yourself to the line. Sometimes you fall over it, but we managed to rectify it. It was more like a glitch.”
To the great partnerships in Irish Olympic history you can add the names of Doyle and Lynch for what is Irish rowing’s fourth ever Olympic medal and a first ever in the male heavyweight division.
Doyle (31) is a doctor from Banbridge, Lynch (26) is a Clonmelman who studied economics at Yale University. They’re “ying and yang personalities”, as Doyle explains.
This is a partnership that has only been in operation for 15 months. Lynch was in America working with a start-up company when he decided in March last year to return to Ireland and chase a Paris Olympics dream.
“Yeah, sure that’s why I came back. I was over there working, and I said, ‘Sure there’s more to life than this,” Lynch said.
“I just started training. I was just hoping to get into a boat and then straight away when I came back I got into the boat with Phil. To be honest straight away, we started going very well. Really, since then, we haven’t really been touched.
“Who would’ve known a year and a half ago that we’d be getting a bronze medal at the Olympics.”
Some prayers have a way of getting answered.