Daire Lynch and Philip Doyle have won bronze in the men’s double sculls, Ireland’s first ever Olympic medal in heavyweight rowing. The Irish crew produced a powerful final quarter to overtake the United States and closed to within a second and a half of the pre-race favourites Netherlands – who had to settle for silver for a second Olympics in a row. Romania took gold.
It was a terrific performance from Doyle and Lynch in a brutally hard race. The Romanian crew are established front runners, but they maintained a searching pace from start to finish and were never headed once the race settled down.
Ireland were down in fifth after 500 metres but got into a good rhythm in the middle of the race and were a close fourth with 500 metres to go. They increased their rate to 45 strokes a minute with about 300 metres to go and swept past the United States.
The Netherlands expended a lot of energy chasing the Romanians and they were vulnerable to a charge from the Irish boat in the closing 100 metres. But even though Doyle and Lynch closed to within a boat length of the Dutch they failed to catch them for second place.
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