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'The way we were going was insane' | O'Donovan brothers join Off The Ball

We were joined by Ireland's Olympic rowing prospects the O'Donovan brothers - Gary and Paul - who...



Other Sports

'The way we were going was insane' | O'Donovan brothers join Off The Ball

We were joined by Ireland's Olympic rowing prospects the O'Donovan brothers - Gary and Paul - who gave us an insight into how life has changed during lockdown.

The Cork natives shot to national fame with their silver medals at Rio 2016, where they cemented their place in the hearts of the nation with an incredible post-race interview.

Now, with the Tokyo Olympics rescheduled until 2021 at the earliest, it appears that lockdown life is not all that different for two elite athletes in one of more remote sports.

"It isn't too bad, we don't really have a whole pile to do with each other throughout the day," said Gary.

"We'd have the dinner in the evening, but Paul is working away studying and I would be out wandering about the fields looking at the animals.

"I think it suits me down to the ground, I don't really enjoy talking to people anyway, being social. I don't mind it, I realise how much little social contact we have when we're away training - you are just going down to your rowing club and doing your training, then coming home and resting up.

"It has made us appreciate how isolated we are with the rowing lifestyle. For the most part of the year, we would try and go to the shop as little as possible to try and conserve energy.

Different athletes are mentally coping with the day differently, and while the pair are on an even keel in that sense, they have had to manage their training accordingly.

"We couldn't really go the way we were going, the way we were going was pretty insane," said Gary.

The training was very, very full-on. The programme was very intense, it was hard. We were coming to the end of the road for the Olympiad, and really giving it socks!

"We definitely won't be coming to a stop or taking any time off. It sounds nice to be like 'let's time some take off' but every day you take off is negative progress and you start getting unfit and we're very fit because we had been training so hard until now.

"It would be an awful shame to lose that work and let it go to waste. We are not training as hard, and have taken our foot off the gas a bit, but we want to maintain what fitness we have and what efforts we have made so far - we don't want to let that go to waste."

FBD Brand Ambassadors and Olympic medal-winning rowers Paul and Gary O’Donovan. FBD Insurance is a principal partner to Team Ireland since September 2018. 

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