If Paul and Gary O’Donovan were any more laid back, they’d be horizontal.
The Cork brothers qualified for the men’s lightweight double sculls semi-final in Rio today by winning their heat in dramatic fashion.
They were slow to leave the dock, but really came on as the race wore on. Finishing powerfully, they won the heat by the slimmest of margins, finishing just 0.38 of a second ahead of the Italian crew.
It was a tremendous win that really came down to the wire… not that you could tell from their interview with RTE after the fact in which they took being “chilled out” to a whole new level.
“We set out the plan going into this race and it fell perfectly into place for us. We went through the Italians in the last 500. They came back at us a little bit but we had enough in the tank to hold them off.
“We’re pretty pleased with that on our Olympic debut. It’s looking for the next day hopefully.”
The brothers were actually due to take part in their opening heat on Sunday, but weather conditions saw it delayed. While the weather wasn’t exactly amazing on Monday, Paul didn’t seem to mind too much.
“We handled it very well. We were almost disappointed we couldn’t race yesterday, it would have been a bit of craic,”
Nor did Gary.
“We’re well used to be a bit of wind. That kind of thing wouldn’t faze us at all.”
The O'Donovan brothers took the choppy water conditions in their stride to win in Rio today https://t.co/lJNoLL4OrYhttps://t.co/AuWALUfm4W
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) August 8, 2016
Unsurprisingly, these two characters’ refreshingly easy-going responses to the interviewer’s questions were very well received.
Interview with Gary and Paul O'Donovan on @RTEsport was a breath of fresh air, they show great character #theymeanbusiness #IrishOlympians
— Barry O'Brien (@bearobrien) August 8, 2016
Absolute legends…..#PureCork #what'sthestorywiththeredarsh https://t.co/D8VL43llQo
— John McCall™ (@JohnMcCallJnr) August 8, 2016
https://twitter.com/roncalli11/status/762729103946579970
Fair play to @RTEsport for these interviews. Those O'Donovan brothers are hilarious! https://t.co/5WEC2pNpvV
— Jean Wallace (@jeanwallace17) August 8, 2016
@RTEsport This clip is fantastic, Gary & Paul seem to be taking the Olympics in there stride. #rowing #RioOlympics2016 #rtesport #WestCork
— Maria (@Collins__Maria) August 8, 2016
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