Water torture: why world champion Cremen craves the pain game
Olympic Rower Mags Cremen is pictured at the Sport Ireland Campus, at a celebration of SPAR and EUROSPAR’s partnership with the Olympic Federation of Ireland and Paralympics Ireland.
SOME sports have the hurt locker, that place where athletes have to go deep inside themselves to shut out the pain and push through.
For rowing, it's the pain cave. And Mags Cremen lives for it.
"I love it," smiled the Cork woman. "I actually love being under pressure. I just love being in a race, I love the battle and I honestly don't know why."
Cremen linked up with Fintan McCarthy in Shanghai in September and they struck gold in the World Championship mixed double sculls final.
"Like, we put ourselves in that pain every day," said the 26-year-old. "But just have a good playlist and good people around you and you get through it, you know? I was always competitive. I played hockey before rowing but I only really continued it for the nights out, that we'd go to the discos together on the Saturday.
"But then when I found rowing at 14 it was the harder you work, the quicker and stronger you get and the better you get. In other sports, that's not always the case.
"It's such a demanding sport. Sure, you're a minute into the race and you've hit the pain cave and it's how you deal with that. You know that every single day it's so important to keep on top of your mind and your wellbeing."
The 26-year-old has competed in two Olympics as part of a lightweight double sculls crew with Aoife Casey, with whom she had won a European Junior silver medal in 2017 and at European under-23 level before heading to the Tokyo Games.
After acclimating to elite level in Tokyo, the duo seriously pursued a medal in Paris last year. It wasn't to be; they finished in fifth place.
Cremen felt that she had evolved into a completely different athlete heading to the last Games and so was disappointed not to make the podium to celebrate a special seven years with Casey.
It was a time of trial and error as they constantly strived to stay under the 57kg weight threshold. I feel like we got it to a fine art in the end, which was great," she said.
And they did win bronze in the Worlds in 2022. "I do miss being lightweight but you're not thinking about a weight restriction and I feel like I haven't hit my limit with my body yet, which is exciting," Cremen enthused.
"Not making the podium in Paris was upsetting but we did our best. That's all we could ask from each other, and just to make the final was an incredible achievement.
"We just enjoyed the journey so much. We're still best friends and that's worth everything. We've had so many ups and downs along the way.
"Obviously an Olympic medal would be a nice object to have but the memories that we have together are the most important to me."
They both continue to work under the guidance of Dominic Casey, Aoife's father, who is now Rowing Ireland's high performance lead coach after his game-changing work with the lightweights.
However, lightweight rowing was taken off the Olympic roster after Paris and so, along with the likes of gold medal machines McCarthy and Paul O'Donovan, Cremen and Casey joined the ranks of the heavyweights.
There are plenty of taller and stronger athletes to compete with and against but, teaming up with Zoe Hyde, Cremen finished in fourth place in the European Championships in the summer.
Then came the recent gold medal winning performance in the mixed double.
McCarthy contends that they had rowed together in practice in 2021. Cremen, however, believes their first time in a boat together was on the eve of their semi-final.
Coach Casey flipped the switch for the first ever staging of the mixed race; Cremen rowed from the front of the boat with her team-mate in bow. Normally it's the male rower up front but the new team-mates stuck to the positions they were used to and it clicked.
"In the boat we were equal and we both used our strengths," Cremen recalled. "Obviously I'm not as strong as Fintan but I use my strengths and he uses his, it was just really nice that way, just bringing like men and women together in the sport."
They were in sync in the semi-final and, in very hot conditions, they attempted to stay cool for the final three and a half hours later, but they were giddy with excitement.
"We're both just demons when it comes to racing," Cremen said. "So we knew if all else failed...we actually rowed technically really well together, but we knew that we were going to give our best from A to B.
"We had that trust in each other that we were going to give everything. On the start line when we heard Fiona Murtagh had won gold, it gave us such a buzz. We were so happy to win.
"The mixed race attracted so many people and there was such excitement, there were so many Olympic medalists in our race and it was great to beat them, people that you'd idolise and look up to. So that was nice.
"It made me believe that I can get to the podium as well.
"I know it's a non-Olympic event now but it's really good motivation because medals are never a guarantee. So your reason for coming back can't be medals, but at the same time believing that you can get there is important.
"That we were both former lightweights shows everyone, even younger kids, that just because you're small doesn't mean you're not going to be good at rowing.
"Sometimes in rowing clubs it's like, 'if you're small you could be a cox' - but no, you can win races, you don't have to be big and strong.
"If you're big and strong that's great but it's funny, when we were lightweight, all our competitors were 57 kg so you have to figure out how to move the boat faster because we're all the same weight with probably similar strengths.
"So, lightweights are so used to rowing the boat well and that probably helped going up to heavyweight because we had to use every single angle that we could.
"We learned to be such fighters, to just love those battles and getting stuck into the racing. Hopefully we'll just be on an upwards trajectory and getting stronger, so it's exciting."
Irish rowing underwent a revolution after Paris with big changes in the top coaching roles, including the exit of Antonio Maurogiovanni, but Cremen sees the moves as a positive step towards moving the programme to the next level.
Casey senior's influence has grown and she says that can only help, given the confidence he instilled in the lightweight crews, while the support staff in general have built an holistic environment.
Cremen feels that has been vital. "It can be quite lonely because you're not moving with the status quo," she noted.
"Like, your friends from school and college, they've got jobs, they're kind of hitting landmarks, career, relationships, and you feel like you're the same person as you were when you were 18.
"At the same time, we give such great experiences to our families and friends like going to Paris. It's once in a lifetime. Now I want to see what I can do in heavyweight. I don't want any regrets, but also I'm so young that why would I stop now? I can work when I'm in my 30s or whatever."
The Rochestown woman predicts a role for herself in elite sport when she stores away the oars for the last time.
She is doing a masters in applied sports and exercise psychology in SETU Waterford, an 18-month course that only involves two trips to the south-east a month and includes lectures with a number of Sports Ireland service providers.
"They're so sound and understanding and they know what it's like in elite level sport," Cremen said.
"I don't think there is like a sports psychology program that has so many practitioners that work in Sport Ireland, so it's amazing to be learning from them, they're just so good.
"I'd love to work with teams in the future. That's where I hope to go when I step back from rowing, that I can make a difference for athletes.
"I'll be finished in December 2026, so I'll have a year and a half until LA at that stage and I'm hoping to gain some experience in different ways because, in sports psychology, you have to build your portfolio.
"I'd love to be like that person for athletes in the future. The subject is growing, it's really exciting, so hopefully I'll be a part of that space."
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