IT has been a fair bit different for Philip Doyle this time around; it had to be.
The madness of Covid wreaked havoc with most athletes’ schedules leading into Tokyo but, for the Banbridge rower, the toll taken was beyond what most could comprehend. For a start, a huge percentage of his training was done on a machine in the garage of his house, remote from partner Ronan Byrne.
That was because, as a junior doctor in the midst of a global pandemic, Doyle was constantly waiting to answer the call as hospitals found themselves under siege. As much as he would have loved to throw himself into Olympic preparation, for a long stretch he was riding both horses.
Having previously won silver in the men’s double sculls at the World Cup regatta, Doyle and Byrne should have been in the mix for medals in Tokyo. That was the aim.
But the pair only qualified for the semis via the repechage, and then tailed off last. It was a disappointing end to a disjointed campaign.
“I still apologise to people,” he says.
“There’s a wee vegetable shop at home and my mum’s always saying ‘go you in and get the vegetables, they were all up watching your races in Tokyo’ - that makes me not want to go!
“It was difficult, to be honest. People from the outside look at it and think ‘God, it’s amazing you came 10th at the Olympics’, and there’s other Irish athletes that were delighted with just getting the t-shirt and stuff.
“I think it was harder for us because myself and Ronan had much higher expectations of the Games. The break, with me going back to work, really did do damage over time, but unfortunately you can’t control a global pandemic - and I think me sitting down in Cork for that entire time as well could have even been more negative.
“But one thing fell into the next with Tokyo, it just spiralled for us, and I don’t think we had the mentality and the confidence to acknowledge it and correct it in the middle of it all.
“You forget that the Olympics is such a different stage to anything we ever had experienced before. You know, the village is just wow and the media attention… all of a sudden you’re like ‘God, no-one gives a shit about rowing normally, why do all these people care all of a sudden?’
“That’s why the sports psychology side of things is vital for performances because, for some reason, just because it’s the Olympics, it means more and it means more can go wrong - and when it goes wrong it’s amplified so much because it’s under a magnifying glass.
“It’s going be hard no matter what, you just you just have to deal with things better than you ever have before because your physiology and your physical ability is not going to change. It’s how you mentally deal with everything else on top.”
Coming home three years ago, Doyle wasn’t sure if he had the drive to continue competing at that level, never mind entering another Olympic cycle.
For the first year, he focused on his career, working in Altnagelvin hospital and training when he could. But the ambition was still there, and kept nipping away until he decided to give it another crack.
“I just thought while I’m young - well, youngish - I’ll take one more stab at it,” said the 31-year-old.
“I was genuinely thinking ‘if I go back and I’m no good, I’ll walk away’, but it came back and the success is still there so I decided to push on and see what happens.”
This time around, preparation could hardly have gone better.
Performance director Antonio Maurogiovanni runs a tight ship. Where Covid forced flexibility, athletes must now be based in Cork on a full-time basis or they won’t be considered for selection.
As a result Doyle relocated to Dripsey in west Cork, just 10 miles from the national rowing centre. There had been “the odd shift” at Cork University Hospital, though nothing in months.
Working alongside a new partner, Daire Lynch, lessons were learned from last time around, and if he wasn’t going to give it everything, what was the point?
“Through Covid time, the balance was pretty poor.
“Up to Christmas time last year I thought the balance was really good, I was enjoying doing both, with two or three days a week in the hospital. But then after Christmas the performance director wanted me in full-time, and there comes a stage where you have to respect your partner as well.
“Daire’s down here full time, it was time to match up with him and see what happened. But I definitely miss it, I really do. I miss the coin, it’s nice wee extra earner, but it’s also a great way to keep up the skills with a different group of people, because obviously when you’re training flat out with somebody in that kind of environment, it’s like a pressure cooker.
“Rowing is a very insular environment, it’s obviously designed to promote performance - that was my release, my separate social group.”
Although Lynch is the same age as previous partner Byrne, the five-year age gap no longer feels like an issue. The relationship with Byrne was a little bit more “delicate”, Doyle admits, probably as a consequence of the strange times in which they were operating.
But Tokyo taught him the importance of nurturing that relationship, and of being honest and open at all times. A few months back Doyle posted something on Instagram that Lynch didn’t like. Nothing major, it just niggled a bit.
So he told him – and Doyle couldn’t have been more delighted.
“That was great. I made sure he knew, and that it wouldn’t happen again.”
The dynamic at the top level is complex at the best of times.
In recent years Doyle read the ‘The Kiwi Pair’ – the story of New Zealanders Hamish Bond and Eric Murray, the double Olympic champions and world record-holding coxless pair who dominated their discipline from 2009-2016.
Chalk and cheese away from the boat, their contrasting personalities didn’t inhibit their performance; if anything, it was enhanced as a result.
“You’re obviously looking for little improvements all the time, and you’re pushing yourself physically, so you’re tired too… you have to empathise with each other a lot.
“Obviously sometimes we get a bit annoyed with each other, but you just take an hour to yourself, go and sit in the hotel lobby or something. It’s not the end of the world, but that relationship is vital.
“You don’t have to love each other, but it helps if you get on. We just have to respect each other and want the same result - like I need to want to win for me as much as I want for him to win.
“With ‘the Kiwi pair’, they just sort stayed in that state. They weren’t best mates, but they respected each other and wanted to win for each other as much as possible.
“It’s like a relationship, you have to have it out every now and then, and you have to be willing to have cross words, but the next morning you move on. Luckily Daire and I do get on.”
The crowds in Paris will be a change, too. Where Tokyo was silent, sedate, this time Doyle and Lynch will be the focus of the masses when chasing their Olympic dream.
“It sounds really narcissistic, and I suppose to be a full-time athlete you have to have a little bit of a narcissistic streak, it’s almost like this selfish confidence that you have to have to be successful in sport, but I enjoy that.
“I can take that as a positive thing and feed off it. Does that makes sense? Like I can feed off the energy and feed off the crowd and feed off things and other people can’t.
“I did miss that a little bit in Tokyo, and I think there was there was maybe a mismatch in how to handle that with my last partner. But Daire and I have a great understanding of each other and what we want to do.”
The team leaves for Paris on Wednesday, with Doyle and Lynch’s heat taking place at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium on Saturday morning.
After what transpired three years ago, he is a little more guarded about making predictions – but, in what could be his final crack at the Olympics, Doyle has never been more determined to make it count second time around.
“Previously I would have been putting money on myself for a medal - I think realistically now, the height of competition at that level, you can’t predict anything really.
“But in rowing, obviously there’s a final where six people are in it, and of those six, the top three get the silverware, so my expectation is to be in that hunt for the silverware.”
