Paul O'Donovan

Good morning, Clare.

How are you?

Um, like, to be honest, it's not a huge gear change at all.

Like the rowing is still the same and the stroke that you and the technique and like the training and the training program would be like almost identical pretty much.

The only thing is like, so there's the weight class is gone.

So you don't have to weigh in before races, you know, which is great.

A bit, yeah.

Well, I mean, the eating depends on how much you're training and stuff.

And like, you don't want to be too heavy either, because then to just be kind of fat and excess weight might be slowing down the boat.

So, yeah, like it would be a bit heavier come the racing day, but not a huge amount.

It's not too much changes because of it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I absolutely wouldn't kind of change your thoughts on that at all, no.

Yeah, so it is busy and, you know, like you're saying, you'd be training a lot and, you know, trying to, I suppose, maintain the weight a bit more and put on muscle and stuff.

And so, you know, to do that, you know, I'm very fortunate with this new partnership with the National Dairy Council and Sport Ireland where they're providing elite breakfast for the athletes so that, you know, you can...

train very hard and get your kind of dairy produce in, which is full of, you know, electrolytes for rehydration and protein for rebuilding muscle and sugars to replenish your glycogen stores.

So that's hugely beneficial, you know, going forwards towards LA because I'm kind of, well, am I busy?

I like to complain that I'm busy anyway, but I'm probably not.

It's kind of variable depending on the day and what you're doing at work, but anywhere between kind of early in the morning and late in the evening, whenever you can kind of fit it in.

What I do always try and prioritise first thing in the morning is a good, healthy breakfast filled with dairy produce.