Olympic gold and silver medallist Paul O’Donovan has proved he is as adept at time management as he is at rowing having managed to combine winning his fifth gold medal at the World Rowing Championships last year with finishing the final year of his degree in Medicine.
Speaking following his conferring at UCC today, the 29-year-old west Cork native said that he always tries to stay as disciplined as possible.
He joked that his hectic schedule of books followed by rowing training meant that he “hadn’t answered the phone to the mother in a long time”.
Paul attributes his sporting and academic success to “cracking on with things” rather than over thinking or procrastinating.
“I get up and go straight out the door in the morning and do some training and it is done for the day and then I just spend the rest of the day studying in college and that kind of stuff,” he said.
“I sometimes get a bit of free time at the weekends and meet some friends and see the family once in a while. It is nice to have them (the family) all here today.”
He said that having the focus of both rowing and studying alleviates stress by dividing it.
Paul plans to get back in to his rowing training over the next few weeks with the long term target being the Paris Olympics next year.
In terms of his medical career he is hoping to specialise in orthopaedic surgery.
Paul and his brother Gary were catapulted into the headlines in 2016 when they won Ireland’s first ever Olympic medal in rowing after they came second in the final in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
