Lisnaskea’s Odhran Donaghy is a Henley Royal Regatta winner after claiming victory for Oxford Brookes University in the Temple Challenge Cup.

The prestigious eights race is open to male crews from universities from across the globe and always attracts a high-quality entry, but none could touch Odhran and his crew members as they defeated University of Washington in the final.

For the 21-year-old it was the culmination of years of hard work, training and dedication.

“It is something I have been trying to get for the past three years while I have been at Brookes, and for the last year of my life I have been completely focused on it,” he revealed.

“It was an amazing sense of relief that all the training, and all the early mornings, and getting up at 6am and going to training before uni, and going to training again after uni, that it all paid off. We are the fastest university in the world!”

Odhran started rowing as a student at Portora, and continued his rowing career when he moved to study Sports Science at Oxford Brookes University.

A strong season

He has been as far afield as Germany and Belgium to compete for the university this season, and with a strong season behind them, they approached the Temple Cup in confident and determined mood, despite the competition attracting the biggest ever entry in its history.

The opening head-to-head race saw them dispatch Durham University, before they defeated international opposition in the form of American University, Georgetown.

The University of London were the next to fall to the Oxford crew, before they won a semi-final against Triton from the Netherlands. That victory set up a finale against University of Washington over the 2,112-metre course.

“We won by four and a half boat lengths, which was very comfortable,” said Odhran.

“In the first half of the race, they were up alongside us, if not ahead of us, and then over the last 1,200 metres they didn’t have anything else left.

“I think they put too much into the start of the race trying to hold onto us. I think they knew that we were quicker than them every single time, and they were hoping if they were still with us at the 1,000-metre mark maybe we might freak out and do something different, and maybe they could get ahead, but we just stuck to our plan and didn’t change anything and finished our race, and they slowed down.”

Having claimed the long-awaited win, Odhran admits he would now like to turn to international competition as he looks to extend his career on the water.

“I would be looking to do a bit of international stuff now, either with GB or Ireland, and maybe the Europeans or the Worlds,” he revealed.

“At the minute, that is only talk and I haven’t even got myself down for a trial, but definitely next year I will be looking more at internationals and hopefully I can get my foot in the door.”