KEOGH Aifric

General
COMMITTING TO ROWING FULL-TIME
In 2018 she decided to commit to rowing full-time. She stopped working as a microbiologist and moved to Rowing Ireland's high performance centre in Cork. "I decided this year [2018] I'd take the step back to train full-time. I had it timed in my head with the Olympic cycle - work for the first two years of the cycle, then for the final two just focus on the training. I do a few part-time hours to keep my brain active and to have something else away from training. Now I can see the difference in my training. I'm better prepared, mentally and physically. I'm getting a lot more sleep and I'm able to look after the food side of things. It's all of those small things that make a big difference." (the42.ie, 29 Oct 2018)

OLYMPIC CONFIDENCE
She was part of the Irish women's four that missed out on a chance to qualify for the Olympic Games when they finished 10th at the world championships in 2019, but ultimately secured a quota spot for Ireland by finishing first at the 2021 Final Olympic Qualification Regatta in Lucerne, Switzerland. She believes the Irish women's four can win a medal at the Games in Tokyo. "While this year [2021] has been very successful for us, I do think it's been a long time coming. We have been there or thereabouts previously, but this season has been different. This combination [of rowers] did not actually have that much training time. It was one of our first races [together] and it just clicked. We wanted the whole [Irish women's rowing] team to go [to Tokyo]. If the four had not qualified we would have to go home and seat race for the [already qualified] pair. That is something we wanted to avoid at all costs. I think we can win a medal at the Olympics [in the four]. I know that's almost a scary thing to say, given we are qualifying so late, but we have been working towards this qualification for two years now." (World Rowing Facebook page, 17 May 2021; connachttribune.ie, 16 Apr 2021; row2k.com, 16 May 2021)

POSITIVE POSTPONEMENT
She fell ill in May 2019 with a pulmonary effusion and had to take 12 weeks out of training that year. She believes the postponement of the Olympic Games in Tokyo gave her additional time to recover and improve her fitness after the illness, on the road to securing Olympic qualification for Ireland in the women's four. "That [pulmonary effusion] was a big setback for me. I did get selected for a boat to try to qualify [for Tokyo], but it was the four, and that was the development boat. It was the medallists from the under-23 [world championships] who were coming up and I just kinda slotted in with them as I was coming back [from the effusion]. So then looking back on it now, with the Games postponed, it's good to have extra time just to make sure that I am fully back to where I was. And then to push on to the next level as well." (Olympic Federation of Ireland Youtube channel, 19 Nov 2020; row2k.com, 16 May 2021; advertiser.ie, 07 May 2020)