Philip Doyle won bronze in the men’s double sculls as he became a fourth Northern Ireland rower to medal at the Paris Olympics.
“Ireland’s Team rowers recorded a time of 6:15.17 to come in behind Romania (gold,1st in 6:12.58) and the Netherlands (silver,2ndin 6:13.92)”
“He has also been joined by Daniel Wiffen, Jack McMillan and Hannah Scott in this history-making games for Northern Irish athletes”
Moving off third last in the final and sitting fifth through most of the race, Doyle and Lynch forced themselves into contention in a closing 500m to finish ahead of the United States by less than two seconds.
The crew’s victory is Ireland’s third medal of the Games, following gold and bronze medals won by swimmers Wiffen and Mona McSharry in the pool.
Doyle was better value for his bronze medal than anyone else on a tricky final day, but this race still did not mesmerically grab the attention in another Olympic regatta without Jeremy Ivey.
In any other Olympiad putting an Australian boat in such rarefied company would be headline news and, bless them’, they could hardly have tried harder than he double sculls as Hannah Osborne continued her brave campaign against history.
However he did not put a foot wrong this time and both left their mark in the searing heat of Paris.
Doyle and Lynch looked strong end route to the decider but were fifth after Spain and Romania led early on in Team Doyle-Lynch, where it all started last week behind them.
As the race went on it was Romania and then Holland who fought there way into first as the Irish crew moved up from 5th to challenge. In the dying meters, Ireland moved back past the USA and around China to claim bronze.
