Katie O’Brien has been nervous watching her training-mates rowing in Paris this week but the Galway Para rower is hoping for calm waters when she gets in the boat in the French capital later this month.
O’Brien will be one of 35 Team Ireland athletes participating in the Paralympic Games.
The entire team, featuring nine sports, was officially unveiled at the RDS on Thursday morning. In between interviews and photo shoots, O’Brien was able to slip away briefly to watch Ireland’s Olympic rowers, with whom she trains alongside at the National Rowing Centre in Cork.
“I’m more nervous watching people race than racing myself because when you are doing it yourself you have a job to do,” she says.
“We are around each other all the time, 24/7. They have been such an inspiration to me, all of the people I’m training with are Olympic medallists and world and European medallists, it’s amazing to see.”
O’Brien was a gold medallist herself at the World Para Rowing Championships in 2022 where she set a new world record in the PR2 W1x category.
The 28-year-old was born with spina bifida and got drawn towards the sport after watching the 2012 Paralympics.
Following those Games, she attended an event to try out various Para sports and it quickly emerged O’Brien had a talent for rowing.
“As a young girl I was incredibly strong because I had spent so much time on crutches, on walkers, in wheelchairs, my upper body was just incredibly strong,” she explains.
“I could beat all the boys in my class in an arm wrestle, bar one, Robert. Aaarggh, I won’t forget him!
“I was just insanely upper-body strong for a young girl. The way I row, I don’t use my legs, the seat doesn’t slide, so it’s all upper body and upper trunk. It just suited me.”
The Paris Games will be the first time Team Ireland will have a boat in the water at a Paralympics since 2012. She will be joined in the boat by Tiarnán O’Donnell.
Unfortunately, O’Brien has endured a difficult spell with injury, which has negatively affected training and preparation in advance of her first appearance at a Paralympics.
“For the last 10 or 11 months I have been really struggling with injury, a bad back and rib injuries. It’s been a pretty tough year for me training-wise. I have been out of the boat more than I have been in the boat, it has been pretty upsetting and disappointing. Fitness-wise, I’m definitely nowhere near where I should be or where I could be. Even technically-wise, when you are not in a boat for a year it doesn’t help. So, things are definitely not where I want them to be, unfortunately.
“It’s just trying to be able to accept that and have the support of my family who are still going to the Games knowing that.
“That support really makes me feel better about the whole thing, makes you realise it’s not just about the result.
“You’ll be on the podium for five minutes but it’s about the journey getting there, the journey is 99 per cent of it. I’m just trying to focus on that now and enjoy it for what it is.”
But with O’Brien’s opening race falling on her birthday, August 30th, perhaps there could be a surprise or two in store yet.
Irish Paralympic team 2024
Swimming: Deaten Registe, Dearbhaile Brady, Ellen Keane, Róisín Ní Riain, Nicole Turner, Barry McClements
Athletics: Orla Comerford, Greta Streimikyte, Mary Fitzgerald, Shauna Bocquet, Aaron Shorten
Para Archery: Kerrie Leonard
Table Tennis: Colin Judge
Para Powerlifting: Britney Arendse
Para Cycling: Katie-George Dunlevy/Eve McCrystal (guide); Josephine Healion/Linda Kelly (guide); Damien Vereker/Mitchell McLaughlin (guide); Martin Gordon/Eoin Mullen (guide), Richael Timothy, Ronan Grimes
Para Equestrian: Kate Kerr Horan, Michael Murphy, Jessica McKenna, Sarah Slattery
Para Triathlon: Cassie Cava, Judith MacCombe/Eimear Nicholls (guide); Chloe MacCombe/Catherine Sands (guide)
Para Rowing: Katie O’Brien, Tiarnán O’Donnell
