GOLD-EN WONDERS! Paul and Fintan are Olympic champions

THEY’VE DONE IT! Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy are Olympic champions!

The favourites for the big prize in the lightweight double sculls at the Games in Tokyo delivered on the big stage with an incredible win in the final in the early hours of Thursday morning.

This is Ireland’s first Olympic gold medal in rowing. It's Paul's second Olympic medal after he won silver with his brother Gary in Rio 2016.

Ireland were locked in a battle with Germany, who made a very strong start and pushed Ireland all the way before the Skibbereen men came out on top, winning in 6:06.43, just ahead of Germany in 06:07.29 with Italy back in third.

'The race plan we had, we do it all the time and it seems to work out OK for us. We kind of know that Italy and Germany always go hard, you can count on that. Then they slow down a bit. Once we were catching up to them, we knew that we were at a sustainable pace and kept going. Germany made it hard for us, that’s for sure,' a delighted Paul O'Donovan said afterwards.