Echo Women in Sport awards: Mags Cremem and Aoife Casey delivered on world stage

The sensational Mags Cremen and Aoife Casey are The Echo Women In Sport award winners for September.

The Cork rowers put on a powerful performance at the World Rowing Championships in the Czech Republic and brought home a fantastic bronze medal to the Rebel County.

They won the medal competing in lightweight double sculls at Racice, and this truly marks a breakthrough performance on the world stage for Mags and Aoife.

They have been rowing together as a crew for years and just gel in the boat, picking up medals all along their rowing journey, at local, national, and international level.

Margaret is from Rochestown and rowed as a junior with Lee Rowing Club, while Aoife is from Skibbereen and rowed with Skibbereen Rowing Club, and both now row for UCC as well as Ireland. While Aoife benefitted from the coaching of her father Dominic Casey at Skibbereen, both she and Mags have benefitted from his coaching since he took up his lightweight coaching role with Rowing Ireland.

Both Mags and Aoife are medal winners as individuals, and together they first burst into the public eye when they won silver for Ireland at the World Rowing Junior Championships in 2017, and went on from there to win another silver at the 2020 European Rowing U23 Championships. And of course they followed this up by qualifying the lightweight double sculls for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, in a dramatic race at the final Olympic qualification regatta, and later in that Olympics they finished eight, and had they had some better luck they could have done so much better.

They will get great confidence from their senior World bronze, as they held off a strong French crew who were trying to take the medal from them. And this was the same French crew who were narrowly beaten to gold at the Tokyo Olympics last year.

Mags said it was a great feeling to win that senior World rowing medal.

“It was brilliant,” she says remembering the feeling as they crossed the line.

“We were more nervous going into the semi-final than we were going into the final. In the semi if you don’t qualify then you move to the B final, and we wanted to make it into the A final.

Once we got there we were more relaxed. Kind of a feeling of we’re here now, the hard work has paid off, now let’s see what happens. We’ll give it our best shot, and enjoy the experience.”

Well, they certainly did, and went off hard from the start.

“Yes, we went off hard from the start, we are known for our good start, but then it is possible for everybody to get a good start,” and it’s hard to know who is doing well, and who could have gone off too fast.

And Mags and Aoife had a right ding-dong of a battle with the French girls, the Tokyo Olympics silver medallists, so quite a challenge.

But they are familiar with the French and with many of the other crews that they race, having grown up racing one another across European and World events.

“They’re all very nice girls, and we’d have some good friendships with many of other crews, and we’d often be encouraging each other if one was knocked out. These are people you meet just a few times each year, but you pick up where you left off very easily.”

Aoife was equally delighted to come home with a medal.

How did it feel to secure that breakthrough senior World medal?

“It’s fantastic, a dream come true,” says Aoife. “And it’s been great to get some time to relax now at home, with the pressure off”, at least for a while.

This success has been “a work in progress for years” overcoming ups and downs; Aoife had to overcome Covid earlier this year.

“I was glad we were able to bring it all back together in the training camp ahead of Racice,” said Aoife. 

We were showing good speed in camp, and we could take confidence in our own ability.”

All that training is the hard part, racing is our favourite part”, says Aoife. “When we got into the final, we said we’d do our best in that final, see how much pain we could put ourselves in.”

And that hard work paid off with a World bronze, and eyes stay focussed on Aoife and Mags as ones others will need to beat.

Dad Dominic was of course proud and Aoife says it was “definitely a bonus to get to share the moment with him”.

He was delighted for all the rowers on their performances, and helped us all to believe in ourselves.

What next for Aoife, who is now finished college, and no longer has to juggle both?

“I’ll try full-time rowing for a few months and see how that goes,” says Aoife, with the focus firmly on the Paris 2024 Olympics.

But she’s aware of the talent that exists in the Irish camp at the moment. “It’s getting harder and harder to get into the Irish boat,” says Aoife. “So the hard work is getting into the Irish boat.”

JOURNEY

For now it’s onwards and upwards.

For Mags it was special also to have her dad Declan there, having not been able to travel to events across 2021 and 2020 due to Covid.

“It was definitely fantastic to celebrate with him afterwards,” said Mags, who was also grateful for the support of her uncle Kieran, who travelled also.

And she was grateful too for all the text messages from the gang at Lee Rowing Club and UCC Rowing Club, and to have her friend Maedbh Heaney and her mum Cliona there to join in the celebrations.

Maedbh was the one that introduced Mags to rowing at Lee Rowing Club, and the rest is, well, history!

Mags and Aoife knew they were in there with a chance at Racice, having put in the work, but didn’t know what they were up against until they crossed the start line. They know the strength of the GB crew and the American crew, who took gold and silver at the Worlds, and are focused on their own rowing journey in preparation for the next regatta season and Olympic qualification next year.

That first chance to qualify a boat for the Olympics comes in September 2023.

Mags is very much aware of enjoying every minute of her rowing experience, and where it takes her, living in the moment, and enjoying the successes.

One can’t help but feel that this World bronze medal win puts Mags and Aoife in a great position as they begin to ramp up preparations for Paris 2024 Olympics qualification.

This has got to be their focus now, and what a great prospect for an Olympic medal they are.