'Possibilities are endless' for Irish rowing if right investment made, says Michelle Carpenter

But the organisation suffered throughout the pandemic with a “huge loss in membership”, says Carpenter, faces and fresh financial headaches.

The Federation of Irish Sport’s pre-budget submission contains five separate funding requests to help clubs and organisations throughout the country thrive beyond the pandemic.

Carpenter is optimistic that rowing’s boom times can continue but noted that investment is vital to keep the show on the road.

“You could easily look at rowing now and say, ‘You’re doing well with what you have, off you go and do it again’ but if that was the case we couldn’t sustain what we’re doing, we just couldn’t,” said Carpenter.

“The Paris ‘24 Olympics are only two and a half years away and that’s a big concern because we need to put our team and our structures in place for that.

“That’s where the multi-annual funding and the commitment to that is going to be really, really important.”

Ireland’s Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy took gold for Ireland in the Lightweight Double Sculls in Tokyo while Eimear Lambe, Aifric Keogh, Fiona Murtagh and Emily Hegarty won bronze in the women’s Four event. And Carpenter says the talent goes much deeper.

“We’ve really good juniors who have won medals, U-23s and seniors so it’s not an overnight success with us and we want to capitalise now on what happened in Tokyo and move forward to Paris. We really need to focus on that and invest in that.”

The Federation of Irish Sport called for further resilience funding in the Budget along with separate long-term core funding.