The O’Donovan brothers, Paul and Gary, have revealed why their father is not their coach anymore.
The Rio Olympics silver medallists won over the hearts of the nation following their Olympics success by being their hilarious selves in interviews.
More recently, the boys stole the show on the Graham Norton show alongside global stars including Marion Cotillard, James McEvoy and Michael Fassbender.
Brothers: The O’Donovan’s have been causing quite a stir since winning silver in Rio | RTÉ
The boys showed a more serious side to themselves in their RTÉ documentary Pull Like A Dog.
Gary said, “When we were younger we didn’t really like the fact that our dad was there all the time with us in the rowing club.
“We were young and growing up and wanted to be away from our parents. We were hanging out with our friends. We found it difficult that our dad was there all the time.”
Paul then added, “We wanted Dominic Casey to coach us and then Dad kind of took a little bit of a step back from the rowing club.”
Coach: The boys father coached Paul up until 2013 | RTÉ
We see in the documentary that their father Teddy still seems upset about the fact that he isn’t their coach.
When asked if he misses coaching them he answered, “Yes I do. I coached Paul who is the youngest of the two. I coached him right up to his last junior race, the world championships in 2013.”
“I thought I had more to give to rowing but it wasn’t to be.”
Gary also added “Dad put an awful lot of work into drilling a really good basic technique into us, getting the movement of the stroke right and doing it together.”
