The quartet – Aifric Keogh, Eimear Lambe, Emily Hegarty and Fiona Murtagh – took bronze after a slow start to the final and doubled the amount of Irish female Olympic medalists as a result, becoming the first women to win an Olympic rowing medal for Team Ireland.

The four women are proud of their achievements in Tokyo and are humbled by the statistics that have sprouted from their bronze medal finish.

“You don’t even realise [what you’ve achieved] until after and I think it’s a really proud moment for us,” Keogh said.

“When we see those things written down it’s like a shock almost and we’re really proud of it.”

The crew are far more spaced out than the gold medalist double sculls duo of Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy.

Murtagh and Keogh returned to Galway as the first Olympic medalists from the county while Lambe comes from Dublin and Hegarty hails from Skibbereen, like the men’s duo.

Murtagh stated that downtime is needed after an intensive few months for the four women.

The 25-year-old said: “Oh, I definitely want to take a bit of time off! It’s been a long preparation and we’ve all worked really hard, so we definitely deserve a break to spend time with family and friends. It’s been so long since we’ve seen anyone.”

Their intensive training in the build-up to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games has seen them form a bubble with each other.

The quartet has rarely mixed outside of their own training group since their training began 13 months before their successful Olympic campaign due to Covid-19.

They are all excited to burst that bubble and see their loved ones after being focused on the Olympics for so long.

Outside Christmas, we probably haven’t seen our families except [for] the odd weekend here or there.

“There were times when we needed time away from the group, but we knew the smart thing was to keep the group as safe as possible and stay within the bubble.”

As Murtagh described it: “We have our own different journeys to go on.”

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Aifric Keogh, Eimear Lambe, Fiona Murtagh and Emily Hegarty are the women behind Ireland’s first medal at Tokyo 2020.

Their win doubles the number of Irish women that have won Olympic medals for the team – the number is now at 8.

They join swimmer Michelle Smith, track star Sonia O’Sullivan, boxer Katie Taylor and sailor Annalise Murphy on the list.

Australia won the gold medal in an Olympic best time of 6.15.37 with the Netherlands second in 6.15.46.

Ireland finished five seconds off the pair of them in third with a time of 6.20.46 ahead of Britain by a single second (6.21.52).

Britain had been in third place throughout the race and at one point looked to be cruising to a medal finish.

Ireland was as low as fifth-place in the race at the halfway stage after a poor start saw them fall away from the pacesetters.

However, Ireland fought hard and got themselves up to fourth for the second time in the race by the 1500m mark.

The women ate at the time gap that the Team GB rowers had on them in third and overtook them heading into the final 200m.

The four rowers held on to their podium spot until they crossed the finish line to win a medal for Team Ireland.

This performance comes less than six months after the crew was formed.

The unlikely medal win serves as a promising precedent for what’s to come for Ireland in rowing at the Olympics, with Sanita Puspure and Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy tipped to do well in their respective events.

O’Donovan is already a medal winner for the nation in his event after winning silver in the Men’s Lightweight Double Sculls with his brother, Gary.

The Irish Women’s Four crew have potentially opened the floodgates for a successful Olympics for Irish rowing.

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