‘The lads are just 22 and 23 — that’s two more Olympics’

In the weeks and months leading up to their historic win yesterday, Paul and Gary O’Donovan would sit on a couch on either side of their grandmother Mary Doab, their laptops in front of them, showing her footage of their training from earlier that day.

They would ask her whether they looked better than the day before, about their timing, their positioning.

“I hadn’t a clue. I would just tell them they were great,” said Mary yesterday as she continued to take in the fact that her grandsons, who lived with her in the build-up to the Games due to her Ballincollig home’s proximity to Inniscarra lake, are now Olympic silver medallists.

Just minutes earlier, almost 60 eyes had focused on the television in that same front room scrutinising the strokes of the lads almost as forensically as they would have themselves.

The whole room was festooned in green, white, and gold bunting and special Tricolour flags were emblazoned with “Team Gary and Paul”.

Mary had proudly positioned a picture of the lads in their double scull in the sitting room window and an Olympic flag hung from one of the upstairs windows.

While many of those gathered in the living room cheered or shouted throughout the race, Mary sat stock still, barely uttering a word, focused entirely on the screen.

Earlier, the gathering had cheered in support of Sinead Lynch and Claire Lambe in the women’s lightweight sculls. No doubt a part of them was inwardly praying that Gary and Paul’s race would not go like their female compatriots, just missing out on a medal.

As the camera flicked back from the women’s race to the start line where the lads were lined up, a cheer shook the house. And just seconds before the starter sent them off, the room burst into a rendition of “Stand up for the boys in green”.

Then the race began. While the start was peppered with shouts of “go on boys”, at the 1,000m stage, when it became clear the lads were in a medal-winning position, the volume in Ballincollig ramped up considerably, building to a crescendo in the last 100m and ecstatic cheers when they won silver.

In the press interview afterwards, Gary and Paul told RTÉ they were going for gold; back in Ballincollig their uncle Michael said he thought the boys would have been genuinely disappointed at not coming first.

“They were telling us before they went they were going for gold,” he said. “They will be absolutely thrilled they got silver but they were going for gold.

“They got a good start in the final compared to the semi-final. They were well up there today. I really think the French were shaking in their boots for the last 100m.”

He said the fact that his two nephews are now Olympic silver medallists hadn’t sunk in: “We are still jumping around the front room and the back garden. It will sink in eventually but it’s absolutely fantastic.”

As to going one better in four years’ time?

“They reckon that in the rowing game you prime at ages 28-30. The lads are 22 and 23 so give them eight years — that’s two more Olympics!”

And how were the lads likely to celebrate last night?

“I think they will be celebrating with a lot of steak and spuds!”

Mary explained what the feat would have meant to the boys and also just what makes them tick: “They always go out to win. It will mean the world to them. It’s what they do, it’s what they love.

“There is no airs or graces about them. They are down-to-earth lads and can be desperately funny but on the river they are focused completely. Even in their exams, they don’t want Bs and Cs. They want As. I felt sorry for them this year. They have been with me here and they have had exams as well as training.”

As as an example of their dedication, Mary told how Paul left training at 7pm one day and drove straight to Dublin for an exam the following day, before driving straight back down again for training.

“They do their own shopping and cooking and they are brilliant cooks and do the cleaning up. They are a great help to me actually. They look after me very well. I am first in their books.”

So where did this rowing skill come from?

Their father Teddy got them into rowing when they were seven and eight, respectively. He also coached them at both junior club and junior international level, by which time they had moved from Lisheen NS to St Fachtna’s De La Salle in Skibbereen.

He has recalled their first international race, a home international, in 2008 when they were 14 and 15 when they came from behind and took out a GB crew of 18-year-olds who were, as he put it, “6ft-plus, stronger and bigger”.

Nowadays, the lads have had to manage studying and rowing. Gary is a fourth-year student of Business at CIT while Paul is an Ad Astra student at UCD studying physiotherapy.