Team Ireland won their first medals in rowing at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and now one of the rowers will be bringing a bronze medal back home to her family’s dairy farm.
Emily Hegarty was raised on her parent’s farm in Moonagh, Co Cork, and is one the first female Irish rowers to ever win an Olympic medal.
Together with her three team mates, Aifric Keogh, Eimear Lambe and Fiona Murtagh, Emily took home the bronze medal in the Women’s Four Final 2,000 metre rowing race.
The team are only the second ever Irish female crew to compete in an Olympic final. They came through after a storming final to pip Britain for the bronze medal. Australia won gold and Netherland the silver.
“We could never experience anything like this again,” said Emily. “So it’s a case of enjoying it, living in it, it’s once in lifetime.”
Emily said when she was younger she was unable to catch or kick a ball so she started rowing with the Skibbereen Rowing Club on the River Illen.
Her dad, farmer Jerry is a local road bowling legend and a former two-time All Ireland intermediate champion.
LSL News.