HEGARTY Emily

General
UNFINISHED FOURS BUSINESS RESOLVED
She was part of the Irish women's four that secured an Olympic quota place for Ireland after finishing first at the 2021 Final Olympic Qualification Regatta in Lucerne, Switzerland, having won also won silver at the European championships a month earlier. She was part of the Irish women's four that previously failed to secure Olympic qualification for Ireland at the world championships in 2019 where they finished 10th. "It's a bit surreal. We fell short two years ago at the world championships. It was a case of unfinished business and we were so happy to get the opportunity done. We had no spaces so we knew we could not take our foot off the gas. It is crazy to think what has happened in five years, like it's mad, because we were still junior at that stage." (southernstar.ie, 16 May 2021; The Southern Star Youtube channel, 18 May 2021)

POSTPONEMENT IMPACT
She is studying biological sciences at University College Cork in Ireland and had split her third year over two years so she could manage full-time training in preparation for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Following the postponement of the Games, she had to delay her fourth year by an extra year. "This [postponement] gives us a year to develop crews and it's another year to get stronger, fitter and faster. It's disappointing the Olympics have been pushed back as a lot of us had plans for after the summer - maybe take a year out, get a job and I was going to go back to college full-time, whereas now that will be pushed back. This might be the only opportunity I get to compete at an Olympics, so I need to make the most of it. It's only another 12 months so I may as well give it everything. I might never get this chance again. We had the extra year, the Olympics was postponed and to be honest I think that made the majority of the crews that are put together now." (southernstar.ie, 16 Apr 2020; The Southern Star Youtube channel, 18 May 2021)

PAIRS CONFIDENCE
At the 2018 World Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, she and Aifric Keogh won their women's pair semifinal race and went on to finish sixth in the A final of the event. She said the result gave them an important confidence boost. "It reassured me that this is what I want to do. There were question marks, especially given it was my first senior world championships and I had just turned 20 at the time, so finishing sixth was a boost. It showed me that we can be competitive because we weren't expected to do that well there. [Our result] was a shock for everyone because we were the newest combination of all the boats that went, apart from the lightweight men's quad. Being there made me hungry to push on for more. It's become a massive motivator for us." (southernstar.ie, 16 Apr 2020; the42.ie, 04 Nov 2018)

The silver medal she won in the women's four at the 2019 U23 World Championships in Sarasota, FL, United States of America, was Ireland's first ever medal in a women's event at the U23 world championships. (SportsDeskOnline, 01 May 2021)