Daire Lynch, a Yale heavyweight oarsman who just took up the single sculls this year, dealt Paul O'Donovan his first defeat in years today.
Lynch, competing for his home club, Clonmel, took over the lead from Fintan McCarthy in the middle stages of the single sculls final at the Irish Championships in County Cork and held off a challenge by O'Donovan to win by .484 of a second.
"Through the 1k I felt very good. I saw that Fintan was a good bit up [but] I know he goes out pretty hard.
"And then I was looking across, thinking "˜I could win this' - so I stopped looking across. I kind of did it like a time trial, just 'horsing'.
"Paul was coming at me from my side and because we were in a sprint we took Fintan with us."
He talked to Paul afterwards.
"He said well done. We're good friends."
O'Donovan was gracious in his post-race comments.
"It was great fun," he said. "There's been some close racing all week and some tough competition. And that's what it is all about this weekend, and that's why we did it.
"Most of the lads on the [Ireland] team and the girls as well, we said we'd do it together and get some good racing in, separate ourselves and race for our clubs against each other. That racing out there showed the strength across all the clubs across Ireland.
"People say it's only the Skibbereen boys that are doing well, but we can see that there's a lot more now that have bought into this hard training lark.
"Credit to Daire Lynch there from Clonmel, he's out there on his own and has been [piling] on the training, like. He had a very good race today. He's matured a lot in the last two years."
Did he leave his drive too late?
"I don't know, I'm not too sure. The last 10 strokes, I wasn't looking, but I don't think I was gaining much. I hadn't been feeling too strong in the middle, so I was happy that the pace wasn't too hot and I was able to put in a sprint to close it down a little bit.
"But these heavyweights are much harder to overturn than the smaller guys in the sprint for the line!"
Lynch, who is 23 and has just one semester left in his Economics degree at Yale, has always been a hard trainer, but thought about giving up the sport after he did not make the selection in the doubles.
"I was injured for Christmas, so it took a while to get back in and by the time I did get back in the double was kind of set [Ronan Byrne and Philip Doyle went on to the Olympic Games] and I was put in the single.
"I started getting a lot better. There was no point dwelling on not being in the double.
"I raced [in the Olympic qualifier] in Lucerne. I was supposed to be going home after Lucerne, but because I just missed out on the final there I felt I had a little more to give. I asked Toni [Ireland hpd Antonio Maurogiovanni] if I could stay on for the World Cup.
"I knew I was good enough to compete because the guys in the Olympic qualification [regatta] were very quick."
He lived up to his promise and finished sixth in the A Final in the World Cup.
"Over in Yale I wasn't thinking about rowing in the Olympics or anything. I was thinking of packing [rowing] in fairly soon."
And now, in his new role as a top single sculler, he has taken a famous scalp.
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