Towey

The young man and the sea

MICHAEL FOLEY

Gearóid Towey will be back in a boat shortly after his agony in Athens — this time rowing across the Atlantic Ocean

He can sense the finish line in the distance and imagines the agony it will cause to get him there. His legs have seized up and the pains ripple up through his abdomen and his ribs towards his shoulders. His chest aches from the effort. The end of every metre invites him to quit but he keeps pushing on, his legs moving from memory.
Is this the hardest thing he has ever put himself through? Perhaps, but Gearóid Towey can handle the pain. Just suck it right up, let it out. For the past two years, pain has been his constant companion. There were times after training with his rowing partner, Sam Lynch, when he could barely get out of the boat.

Times when he crossed the finish line and found himself hanging out the side, unaware of where he was. Two years of chronic dieting and wasting the final droplets of sweat from their bodies so they could row as a lightweight pair had taught Towey to discipline his feelings.

Every year his body would protest, but every year he would break that resistance down and keep skimming off the pounds. He had compartments to deal with this stuff, and get through. And for what? To miss out on an Olympic final by six-tenths of a second because of a broken printer on a weighing scales? Best not to think, just do.

Three months and a world of living since Athens, it is the sands of Copacabana Beach that are cutting him up. The Red Bull Giants of Rio race, an eclectic team event that mixes swimming in the open sea and mountain biking through the city with hang gliding around the Christ The Redeemer statue and running along the beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana, is coming to an end with Towey hauling the Irish team to a respectable position inside the top 20.

In preparation for his sand-running leg, Towey had taken a few spins along Dollymount Strand in Dublin, but this was different. The sand is grainier and falls away from under his feet, forcing him to add a little extra effort to every stride. As he runs, he looks around. The beach is filled with sleek, bronzed Amazonians, chubby holidaymakers, little street kids screaming “gringo” and throwing out their hands for high-fives. The mellow scent of marijuana smoke wafts in the air.

It is a strange bunch he finds himself competing with. A group of Canadian cyclists went out on a training spin a few days before the race through one of Rio’s favelas, the shanty towns ruled by a collection of drug lords. As they descended a rocky footpath, a man emerged with a shotgun and fired over their heads. Back they pedalled.

The following day all the competitors were summoned to a meeting and shown a map of Rio. With the areas marked blue signifying the safe areas to train and red marking the no-go areas, the map looked like it had come down with a bad rash.

The last few months has been a blur of travelling, all part of a plan to stop himself sitting and thinking about Athens. Before Rio he was at home for a charity triathlon along the River Blackwater where he grew up in Cork. Then, he headed for Egypt and saw the whole country in two weeks, travelling by night, exploring by day.

After Rio, he fetched up in Valparaiso in Chile and spent a day in a school telling children about his life and how rowing became part of it. In time he will return with a crew of friends to a country blessed with lakes and the perfect environment for rowing competition, to take part in some exhibition races.

From Chile he went to Australia for Christmas, then New Zealand. Funny, he thinks, how things go. He has never believed in repetition. If he had won a medal in Athens his rowing career would be over, yet defeat has led him to the greatest challenge of his life. In New Zealand he met Rob Hamill, an old rower with a scent for adventure, and bought a boat to row across the Atlantic Ocean this November with an Irish partner as part of the Atlantic Rowing Challenge, emulating Eamonn and Peter Kavanagh from Arklow, who became the first Irishmen, in modern times at least, to row across the ocean eight years ago.

“All that kind of stuff,” he says, “anything that’s long distance, that involves a lot of days, polar crossings are equally tough if not tougher. For me personally, this will be the toughest thing so far, mentally and physically. You know, when you get so depleted there are days when you’re not on the planet.”

Red Bull has been attracted as sponsor and his efforts will benefit charities devoted to fighting cancer and homelessness and drug abuse. But this is for himself, too.

“When I was young I remember thinking, ‘Has anyone ever crossed the sea in a rowing boat?’ I read it up and saw Chay Blyth had in 1966. It was just something in my mind. When the race was created in 1997 I thought, ‘Jesus Christ, that race would be awesome to do’ but because of my race rowing it never suited. It’s always been in my mind to do it.”

The next few months will be filled with training and fundraising and attending geography and history lectures in Trinity, engaging as best he can with normal living, safe in the knowledge that in his life, things never stay the same for long. In November, the change will come