Ross Corrigan aiming to follow in footsteps of his famous cousin Leona Maguire

ROWING FOR GOLD: Team Ireland rowers Ross Corrigan, right, and Philip Doyle during a rowing training camp. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

The aim of the brilliant 20x20 campaign when it was launched was to accelerate the gains being made by women’s sport.

It targeted 20% more media coverage, 20% more female participation and a 20% boost in attendances at women’s games within two years.

Change was already in motion, and for the better, but lack of visibility was perpetuating a dearth in role models that could serve as driving forces in attracting more girls into sport. It was summed up with the tagline: ‘can’t see, can’t be’.

Like all such things, it’s success lay in its simplicity. The beauty of that maxim lies in its universality. Ross Corrigan was a male teenage athlete in Enniskillen when the 20x20 was being rolled out – not its target audience, basically - but he understood the message.

He was 15 and a budding Gaelic footballer with the Kinawley club in Fermanagh when rowing started to turn his head and he only had to look and listen to the men guiding those early steps and strokes to know that a world of opportunity was within reach.

Ian Kennedy had rowed for Ireland at the Montreal and Moscow Olympics in 1976 and 1980 and Derek Holland had followed in that slipstream at Atlanta in 1996.

Their proximity meant that the Games didn’t have to exist in some abstract or faraway corner of his mind.

“Excellence breeds excellence in a way. I looked up to Ian and Derek from the moment I started in the rowing club and as time progresses you have more people coming into your life who are trying to build you up to the point of winning an Olympic gold medal, ideally.

“It’s great to have such a network of people around you to bear witness and make life easier for you because they know the pitfalls and they are trying to steer you away from them and keep you on the right path.”

Team Ireland, from right, Ross Corrigan, John Keane, Alex Byrne and Jack Dorney compete in the Men's Four B Final during day three of the FISA World Cup Rowing II at Lake Gottersee in Lucerne, Switzerland. Photo by Roberto Bregani/Sportsfile

He wasn’t long in the boat when Paul and Gary O’Donovan claimed Ireland’s first Olympic medal with a silver in 2016, and the urge to make his own Games one day was only cemented by the fact that two of his first cousins were involved in Rio that same year.

Leona Maguire was one quarter of Team Ireland’s golf team seven years ago. Her twin sister Lisa, who had her own sparkling amateur career, was on the bag as caddie.

And Corrigan was among those at the Slieve Russell when they were treated to a celebratory homecoming.

While Leona is away travelling the world most of the year, Lisa is in Cork studying dentistry and that allows Corrigan touch base for coffees given his residency near the National Rowing Centre in Ovens.

“For me then [2016] was, 'I want to make Tokyo', but I was a bit young for it and it didn't work out that way. I suppose that was the first time I really thought about it because when I started I didn't know what I'd want to do.

“But between watching Gary and Paul win the silver medal, which was a real boost for the sport, and watching Leona come back with Lisa from the Olympics, that was a real motivator for me to try to make it for the next time.”

The goal now is to join Maguire with Team Ireland next year and he is so close to the Paris hosting that he can smell it after a brilliant showing alongside Nathan Timoney in the men’s pair at September’s World Championships.

The two Enniskillen alums qualified a men’s pair boat for the 2024 Olympics with a brilliant effort in the World semi-final in Belgrade and they followed that up by claiming an unexpected bronze medal in the final itself.

That doesn’t guarantee them passage to Paris. National trials, to be held in the spring, will determine who gets the two spots in that particular boat but Corrigan and Timoney have to be in the box seats given their experience in Serbia.

Corrigan still struggles to find the appropriate words to describe that achievement. Indescribable, he said. Savage. To do it with his parents Enda and Yvonne and younger brothers Ben and Don looking on made it all the sweeter.

The challenge now is to realign his sights and his ambitions. For some, simply making the Games is the pinnacle.

Corrigan has already shifted the goalposts beyond even anything his coaches and his cousin have managed.

“I'd be lying if I didn't say I want to come home with a gold medal. I understand how tough it is but, look, we want to put ourselves in the best possible position to do that. That definitely would be my goal for Paris.”