Bennekerry native Finn Lynch is chasing the Olympic dream this month. Having set off for Rio (again, incidentally) on Monday, the Carlow man is our youngest Olympian in Rio and is hoping for good things when the sailing commences this weekend.
READ: Three local athletes settle into Rio ahead of the start of the 2016 Olympic Games
The 20-year-old popped into KCLR studios for a chat before heading off to Rio to give us an insight into his training, preparation and what to expect from this year’s Olympic Games.
When I finished school in CBS Carlow, I decided to go full time, spending a lot of time in Croatia training. Since then, I’ve won a few medals – Under 19 World Champion, Under 21 World Champion and since I’ve made the jump from youth sailing to senior sailing, my biggest achievement has been qualifying for the Olympics.
We’ve been spending hours and hours and lots of money and hard work in trying to figure out everything we can about Rio – the different depths in the water makes differences, there’s lots of mountains around Rio so knowing if there’s a cloud coming over this mountain does this effect, is it something that happens all the time? So we just need to know the things that are happening regularly so that on race day if we see something happening on the water or in the clouds we can react to it and not be blown away by it.
READ: Three local athletes settle into Rio ahead of the start of the 2016 Olympic Games
The opening ceremony for this year’s Olympic Games takes place in the wee hours tonight with the men’s sailing events getting underway from Monday.
