Paul O’Donovan, the two-time Olympic champion and Ireland’s most decorated Olympian, has spoken publicly for the first time about the safeguarding and welfare controversy that engulfed Rowing Ireland’s high-performance programme. Speaking in Dublin at a National Dairy Council–Sport Ireland Institute event on Wednesday, the 32-year-old said “no one wants anyone to experience anything like that in any sport”.

His comments come five months after both Rowing Ireland and Sport Ireland appeared before a Joint Oireachtas Committee to address concerns about athlete welfare within the high-performance setup between 2021 and 2024. O’Donovan has a particular perspective: he was close enough to the system to sign a vote of no confidence in its leadership back in 2017, yet distant enough in the years since to say his own daily experience was different from those who raised the alarm.

The 2017 letter

The roots of the controversy predate the Oireachtas hearing by almost a decade. In August 2017, Antonio Maurogiovanni was appointed as Rowing Ireland’s high-performance director. By November of that year, Paul and Gary O’Donovan had co-signed a letter to Rowing Ireland expressing no confidence in his position, alongside two-time world champion Sanita Puspure and others.

“Back in 2017, Antonio came in initially, and we stated we weren’t very happy with his behaviour towards us,” O’Donovan told The Irish Times. “And in fairness, he left us off then, in a kind of a lightweight training group, which we were more or less able to do our own thing over most of the years.”

That arrangement, O’Donovan said, meant the brothers trained on separate camps from the heavyweight group, had their own athletes’ representatives, and operated at a remove from the central setup. He was away “a good bit” and described the resulting training environment as “reasonably good”.

“But I don’t think I thought about it that much,” he said. “I wouldn’t be one to get too stressed out about things.”

They appear to have managed the programme by creating some distance from it. O’Donovan won Olympic gold in the LM2x at Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 with partner Fintan McCarthy while spending large stretches outside the Cork training centre. For the last two years he has been absent from it entirely, completing his medical degree (qualifying as a doctor in May 2023) and working at the Mater hospital in Dublin.

Photo Ireland’s LM2x Olympic champions Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy in Paris

Gary O’Donovan

Trish O’Donovan, mother of Paul and Gary, spoke with Sunday Independent journalist Paul Kimmage, and remarked that Rowing Ireland were “messing with his [Gary’s] head” . When asked about his brother Gary’s treatment, and their mother’s quoted remark, Paul said:

“It’s hard to know. I haven’t thought about it recently that much… But it is very unfortunate. No one wants anyone to experience anything like that in sport. Or not even just sport, just in any aspect of their life.”

The Skibbereen brothers won lightweight double sculls silver at Rio 2016 and World Championship gold in 2018. Asked whether Gary might ever row for Ireland again, O’Donovan declined to speak for him: “I don’t know, you’d probably have to talk to him about that, and his plans.”

McCarthy, O’Donovan’s partner across the last two Olympic cycles, last month described the controversy as “probably the hardest few months of my career so far.” O’Donovan acknowledged the difference in their experiences. “I suppose everyone’s experience is different. Fintan’s made mention of his,” he said. “I didn’t have the same experience that other people had. Which I don’t think is unusual in the circumstances.”

The Oireachtas hearing

The controversy reached the Oireachtas in January 2026, when the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport examined concerns about athlete safeguarding within Rowing Ireland’s high-performance unit from 2021 to 2024. The concerns followed a series of interviews with Irish Olympic rowers published by Sunday Independent journalist Paul Kimmage.

Rowing Ireland chair Barry McWilliams told the hearing it was “unacceptable” that any athlete should have negative experiences in its programme. Sport Ireland said it had withheld high-performance funding of €1.4 million and core funding of €400,000 from Rowing Ireland due to concerns first formally raised in March 2021. Rowing Ireland pledged to review “all aspects” of the issue.

Ministers Patrick O’Donovan TD and Charlie McConalogue TD called for an independent review of the processes, procedures and timelines involved, with the Government stating that athlete safeguarding is a shared responsibility across the Irish sports system.

O’Donovan acknowledged the rebuilding effort but said he felt too far removed to judge it closely. Niall O’Carroll has taken over as high-performance director and has begun work on athletes’ charters. “They seem to be making an effort,” O’Donovan said. “And I believe there’s a review as well that they’re trying to undertake.”

On the future, he said: “Hopefully for the young people coming up, they won’t have to experience what some others have had to experience.”

Photo Ireland’s Paul O’Donovan

The road to LA

O’Donovan has not raced in 11 months. His time is split between research and teaching UCD medical students, and his training is confined almost entirely to the rowing machine. He intends to return to the water for the 2027 season, targeting the LA Olympics in 2028, where lightweight events will no longer feature after their discontinuation following Paris.

“It’s definitely going to be hard,” he said. “I think the biggest challenge will be to try get into one of the Irish boats.” That route still runs through the same national system he has kept at arm’s length for years.

“I’d like to win more, certainly,” he said. “I’m happy enough to try anyway, even if they don’t work out, I’ll try my best still.”

Irish Times interview with Paul O’Donovan