Philip Doyle and Daire Lynch have won Olympic bronze in the final of the Men’s Double Sculls (M2x) at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
In doing the Irish duo have won Team Ireland’s fourth medal at these Olympic Games. They join Mona McSharry (bronze), Daniel Wiffen (gold) and Kellie Harrington who secured at least a bronze.
In winning bronze, this is the first ever heavyweight Olympic medal for Ireland. A place in the history books awaits for these incredible Irish oarsmen.
“It’s tough, it’s an Olympic final, anything can happen” declared Daire Lynch. “We knew the Romanians were dangerous, like they scraped through the semi-final.
“Realistically they shouldn’t have got through that semi-final and we knew they’d be dangerous because they’re very, very good!
“They won the Europeans by eight seconds I think; so they were going to be a big threat coming into this”.
“We were posting fastest times, heat and semi and obviously then you’re a bit disappointed when you get bronze but I genuinely don’t think there’s anything else we could have done there so we have to be happy with it”.
“It’ll sink in fairly soon once we get time to relax a bit.”
In a final contested in somewhat faster conditions than the last number of days. The Netherlands took silver behind the Romanian team. Ireland outsprinting USA to bronze.
“I went to bed last night thinking we might win the thing to be honest but to be honest to come away with an Olympic medal you can never be disappointed” added Doyle.
“I’m not sure we would have got the Dutch but maybe we would have put a bit more pressure on them and they would have made a mistake”.
“As I say this is the pinnacle, this is where you have to put it all on the line so we went at about 250m earlier than we usually do, pushed hard and made some calls”.
Prior to today’s performance from Doyle and Lynch Ireland have won three Olympic rowing medals before; one gold (LM2x Tokyo), one silver (LM2x Rio) and one bronze (W4 Tokyo).
