Huge congratulations to Gary and Paul O'Donovan who won their Lightweight Double Sculls heat on a great day for Irish rowing at the Rio Olympics.

The Cork brothers are now in the semi-finals, and are looking in good shape having been tipped to do well in our predictions/preview of the games that was published last week, along with Sinead Lynch and Claire Lambe who also made it to the semi-finals of the Women’s Lightweight Double Sculls.

Speaking to RTÉ after their race, the lads gave one of the most wonderfully Irish interviews in a long time as they expressed their happiness at the support they had while on the water, and joked that racing the day before in windy conditions would have been "a bit of craic."

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

When asked about the support they had received in Rio, they gave an outstanding response too:


It's been brilliant and I'd say they're making plenty of noise at home as well. With 500m to go, I heard someone roaring at me from the grandstand, and that's a good bit, it's 250m I could hear him from - Most of them are shouting "Up Skibb!" To have them all here and everyone have such smiling faces and everyone cheering for us after the race, it's a huge honor, first to be representing our country, and then to have a load of people screaming us on, it's brilliant.

The O'Donovan brothers are reigning European champions and so would have been hoping to get the best of a largely European heat, and they did so by finishing first with a time of 6:23.72, so it is understandable that they were in such a good mood.

That's one of the highlights of the games for us, fair play to the lads and here's hoping they can keep on winning and give a few more interviews.

[via RTE.ie]