Ireland’s Paul O’Donovan completed his golden summer by winning the lightweight single sculls title at the World Championships in Canada on Saturday.
Just over three weeks on from defending his Olympic lightweight doubles title with Skibbereen colleague Fintan McCarthy, 30-year-old O’Donovan added gold when winning the singles final by over two seconds.
A blistering start by Greece’s Antonios Papakonstantinou gave him the lead after 500 metres in St Catharines, and although O’Donovan was last of the six boats at the quarter-mark, he was less than a second down.
By halfway, O’Donovan was up to second and primed for his stronger closing half that has seen him dominate the lightweight double sculls alongside McCarthy.
O’Donoghue pushed into the lead by the 1,500m mark despite a passing swan nearly getting wrapped up in his oars.
He kept Papakonstantinou at bay and pulled away inside the final 250 metres to win by clear water in a time of 6:49.68, with Italy’s Niels Torre taking bronze.
It was O’Donovan’s seventh gold medal at a World Championships and third gold in the singles after successes in Rotterdam in 2016 and Sarasota in 2017. He then focused on double sculls, winning gold in 2018 with his brother Gary and with McCarthy in 2019, 2022, and last year in Belgrade.
Admitting to being “a little bit tired” after the race, O’Donovan admitted his tactics were dictated by Papakonstantinou’s blistering start.
“It was very close in the first stages and then the Greek took off. I was like, ‘I better follow him because he’s pretty dangerous’. I tracked him down in the end and got a little bit ahead and I just kept working to avoid the sprint at the finish because I could see USA and Italy were fighting it out and closing down on the two of us. So I was happy to cross the line in the front position.”
Earlier, defending champion Siobhán McCrohan took bronze in the lightweight women’s sculls A final.
The 37-year-old from Claregalway was in the silver medal position behind runaway leader Ionela Cozmiuc of Romania through the 1,000m and 1,500m marks, but Greece’s Zoi Fitsou got up to pip McCrohan for silver inside the final 100 metres.
Cozmiuc won silver for Romania and Fitsou bronze for Greece in the lightweight double sculls at the Paris Olympics.