A new documentary about Olympic silver medallists Paul and Gary O'Donovan reveals that the Skibereen brothers were hungry to win races even from a very young age.
In the hour-long documentary, Pull Like A Dog, to be screened on RTÉ One next week, the lad's father Teddy reminisces about their first time getting on the water, saying "there was something there, a drive and an urge".
Teddy admits that he was glad his sons followed him into rowing, saying: "Every parents wish is that their children would get involved in a sport that they were involved in themselves."
And he says from the get-go the two lads clearly had a determination for winning.
"They had no interest in learning to row - they wanted to race. There was something there, there was a drive and an urge....I was probably dreaming maybe of what might be, rather than would be".
The documentary follows the rowing duo as they return to their parish of Lisheen and the Skibbereen rowing club in the aftermath of their success in the summer Olympics.
In the programme there's also evidence of that famous cheekiness from an young age. Gary jokes that one of his earliest memories of rowing is throwing his dad's rowing medals and tankards around the place when they were "making wreck of things" while playing in the attic.
He said of their first days rowing: "Paul was 7 and I was 8, we started at a very young age, most people don't start till they're 10 or 11.
"I remember the very first day, they brought us out and there was this big training boat, it's a big, wide boat."
Paul added: "I just remember us, we nearly jumped into it like a sled or something and dragged it along the rocks to the water".
Pull Like A Dog is on Tuesday 27 December at 9.25pm on RTÉ One.
