It seemed the last thing Paul O’Donovan cared about was any reminder of how many gold medals he’s now won at the World Rowing Championships.
For the record, gold medal number seven was delivered in dominant and invincible style at the Royal Canadian Henley course in St Catharines, Canada on Saturday, O’Donovan winning the lightweight single sculls title just over three weeks after winning the Olympic doubles title in Paris with Fintan McCarthy.
Already one of the most decorated Irish athletes of all time, whatever it is that consistently drives O’Donovan to be the best lightweight rower in the world, it’s definitely not the medals.
“Something like that,” O’Donovan said when told it was his seventh gold medal at the World Championships. “But I think I was dragged along by other people for most of them. I can’t take credit for all of that.”
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Three weeks after writing his own piece of Irish sporting history in Paris, where he became the first Irish athlete in any sport to win a medal in three successive Olympics, after his silver in Rio (with older brother Gary), and gold in Tokyo (with McCarthy), O’Donovan added his third gold in the single sculls.
With the Paris Olympic Games having only just concluded, and the Paralympic Games starting on Wednesday, the combined championship event was for the non-Olympic and non-Paralympic boat classes, of which six were contested, and staged along with the World Under-23 and Under-19 Championships.
The Skibbereen rower is no stranger to the lightweight single sculls; the last time that the combined World Rowing Championships was run, in 2016, O’Donovan, then aged 22, won gold in this same boat class.
He defended the title in 2017 before moving into the double sculls which he’s generally raced in ever since. It’s now his seventh World rowing title in all, between the lightweight single and double sculls, sitting alongside his three Olympic medals (two gold and one silver) and five European rowing medals.
Defending champion Siobhán McCrohan also won bronze in the lightweight women’s sculls final.
The 37-year-old from Claregalway was in the silver medal position behind runaway leader Ionela Cozmiuc of Romania through the 1,000m and 1,500m marks, before Zoi Fitsou from Greece got up to pip McCrohan for silver inside the final 100 metres.
Cozmiuc had won silver for Romania and Fitsou bronze for Greece as part of the lightweight double sculls at the Paris Olympics.
The 30-year-old O’Donovan didn’t have it all his own way, Antonios Papakonstantinou from Greece setting the pace in the opening 500 metres.
By halfway, O’Donovan was up to second, then hit the front at the 1,500m mark despite a passing swan nearly getting wrapped up in his oars. He kept Papakonstantinou at bay and pulled away inside the final 250 metres to win by clear water in a time of 6:49.68, with Italy’s Niels Torre, who had been the fastest qualifier last Sunday, taking bronze.
Admitting to being “a little bit tired” after the race, O’Donovan said his tactics were dictated by Papakonstantinou’s blistering start: “It was very close in the first stages and then the Greek took off. I was like, ‘I better follow him because he’s pretty dangerous’.
“I tracked him down in the end and got a little bit ahead and I just kept working to avoid the sprint at the finish because I could see USA and Italy were fighting it out and closing down on the two of us. So I was happy to cross the line in the front position.”
Paul O’Donovan – The medal haul
Olympics
Gold medal, Paris 2024, Lwt double sculls (with Fintan McCarthy)
Gold medal, Tokyo 2020, Lwt double sculls (with Fintan McCarthy)
Silver medal, Rio 2016, Lwt double sculls (with Gary O’Donovan)
World Championships
Gold medal, Rotterdam 2016, Lwt single sculls
Gold medal, Sarasota 2017, Lwt single sculls
Gold medal, Plovdiv 2018, Lwt double sculls (with Gary O’Donovan)
Gold medal, Ottensheim 2019, Lwt double sculls (with Fintan McCarthy)
Gold medal, Racice 2022, Lwt double sculls (with Fintan McCarthy)
Gold medal, Belgrade 2023, Lwt double sculls (with Fintan McCarthy)
Gold medal, St Catherines, Lwt single sculls
European Championships
Gold medal, Brandenburg 2016, Lwt double sculls (with Gary O’Donovan)
Gold medal, Varese 2021, Lwt double sculls (with Fintan McCarthy)
Gold medal, Munich 2022, Lwt double sculls (with Fintan McCarthy)
Silver medal, Racice 2017, Lwt double sculls (with Gary O’Donovan)
Silver medal, Glasgow 2018, Lwt double sculls (with Gary O’Donovan)
