The deferral of Olympics may be a blessing for local rower

HAVING failed to find a partner to compete with her in the double sculls ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, Clarinbridge’s Katie O’Brien is hopeful the postponement of the Games will afford her time to procure the services of another rower before the summer of 2021.

O’Brien claimed a bronze medal in the PR2 women’s single sculls at the World Rowing Championships in Austria last August but, with no single sculls event in the Paralympics, she had been looking for someone to fill a double sculls boat with her. Unfortunately, there has been no one who has met the criteria.

“Yes, I was looking for a partner, and we still are,” says the 23-year-old World Championship medallist. “There still isn’t anyone really in the pipeline and it had come to a head in that we had conceded we wouldn’t find anyone in time for qualification.

“Now, though, I am on the lookout again. Because the qualification regatta was called off, it does give me a bit more time to look – if it was ever to happen that I could find a partner.”

O’Brien has spina bifida and, as she notes herself, “it is quite a specific disability”. She continues: “It is also a big commitment for anyone to undertake. It would be a year of a steep learning curve and a lot of time would be taken up. So, trying to find someone who fulfils both of those things – commitment and the physical disability – it is hard to find.”

In any event, the Clarinbridge woman is still not without an objective for 2020 – and that is to medal once again at the World Championships at Lake Bled in Slovenia in August, should the competition go ahead.

“I am training away and I have my eyes on the World Championships again this summer, even though it is a non-Olympic event (single scull). I am going to go again myself and that is the one good thing about not having to rely on getting a partner. So, that is what I have set my eyes on and, then, after that, if I meet a partner, it is just a bonus.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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