Fitness
Rowing
Find out how Paul and Gary O’Donovan became rowing's unlikeliest superstars
For our final Way of the Wildcard film, we visit two Irish siblings who turned their humble beginnings into a platform for sporting immortality – watch the video now.
13 min
The O'Donovan Brothers - Way of the Wildcard
Way of the Wildcard is a series of short films documenting different sports stars who have faced adversity on their journey to the top. This one focuses on Irish rowing stars, Gary and Paul O'Donovan.
Livestock-based workouts aside, nobody can accuse Paul and Gary O’Donovan of following the herd. When the brothers scooped silver at the Rio Games in 2016, becoming the first Irish rowers to ever win a medal, they also achieved a hefty amount of global attention on the back off their cheeky interviews and infectious patter.
Frankly, they couldn't have sounded more down to earth if they'd been struck by a meteor. And if they sounded a world away from the typically media-savvy and polished athletes of the sport, that's because they were. This duo did it the hard way, even going so far as to once build their own gym equipment out of scrap metal.
For the final film in Red Bull’s Way of the Wildcardseries, we travelled to Skibbereen in County Cork to meet Gary and Paul and see where it all began.
Watch the video in the player above to get to know the rowing stars' family members and some of the locals who’ve helped along the way. We also ask them to relive that spine-tingling day in 2016 which put the eyes of the world on their small town and visit the pair's battered old local rowing club in the hope of unlocking the secrets of how they toppled the world's elite.
