There are few things sweeter than a comeback story. Fiona Murtagh's story has been anything but plain sailing.
These days Murtagh is riding on the crest of a wave. Her 2025 season was something beyond her wildest dreams. A shift to single sculls culminated in a gold medal at the World Championships in Shanghai. A bronze medal at World Cup I in Seville last month kicked off her 2026 season.
"Last year took off in ways that I just didn't foresee or expect, in the greatest possible way," Fiona explains. "I didn't set an expectation on myself to do or achieve anything very much.
"It's funny when you remove expectation how much possibility there is. It was such a confidence boost."
Despite the instant success in sculling, and her world champion status, the Maigh Cuilinn native doesn't yet consider herself a master of her craft. Going into her second season, the focus is still very much learning and experimentation.
"I'm willing to take risks to understand what works and what doesn't work. Seville was a perfect example of that - I tried a few things, and they didn't work out in my favour, and that's totally fine. I'm not thrown by that in any means."
That being said, you can't take that competitive drive out of a winner. But Fiona has learned that channelling that tenacity and confidence in her abilities comes through maximising herself in training, so that race day is just a "ruthless execution" of the work she has put in.
"I'm naturally super competitive at heart and I love racing. So I always want to win and I don't go out there for participation. I go out there with the belief that I can definitely cross the line first.
"For me it's very much that belief that I can do it, but I don't succumb to the pressure or the expectation of it all. I don't want to chase anything, because when you chase things you become desperate, and when you become desperate that's where the mistakes kind of appear in my opinion."
Training at least six times a week - sometimes three times a day - as well as working full-time requires an unfathomable level of commitment. But Murtagh doesn't blink, it's the love for what she does and an undying gratitude for the position that she's in that charges the batteries and pushes her to go again.
Rock bottom
No athlete's career is linear. Murtagh's success is a by-product of relentless drive, unwavering discipline, and a refusal to let setbacks define her story. However, even the strongest of us have our breaking points.
Having been part of the Irish team that won the nation's first women's rowing bronze at the 2020 Olympics, Fiona's team medalled in every race leading up to Paris in 2024. To leave France without making the final was "devastating beyond words". Murtagh admits she felt that she had "hit a ceiling" and "didn't know how to give anymore".
After 16 years in the sport, retirement crossed Murtagh's mind. New coach Dominic Casey had other ideas.
Murtagh began a programme to prepare her for single sculling, something she admits she "would rather stay on land" than take part in before she made the switch.
"It was a limitation that I put on myself," she concedes.
Winter of 2024 became a learning period of practically a "new sport" according to Fiona. Different physical demands, different tactical demands, but different psychological demands.
Being part of a team fosters a unique mentality to solo sport. Fiona had to develop an entirely new mentality - her motivation shifted. That's not an easy switch. Your ambitions become the primary motivator rather than the weight of performing your duty for the team.
"It was something that I used to pride myself in," she notes, "their Olympic dreams are in my hands and my Olympic dream is in their hands, so I have the responsibility of their aspirations, and it was something that I took immense pride in.
"I never looked at it as it was my dreams that I was chasing, it was the responsibility of theirs.
"I had to completely reframe my thinking in terms of this is what I want to achieve and being like 'I deserve that' or 'I want it because I'm capable of it'.
"It has allowed me to be so much more solid in myself. I go into regattas in the incredibly calm sense of knowing, rather than a desperation of 'I hope this goes that way I want it to'. I'm very much like I know that I can do this."
Sometimes it takes hitting rock bottom to truly re-evaluate. To separate yourself from reality and make a change in an attempt to yield more positive results. For Murtagh to brush away the shackles she put on herself paved way to a greater point of clarity.
"It felt like a whole new sport at a time where I think I needed it most," she explains.
"I think the combination of a new skill, but also understanding that there's more to me than just Fiona the athlete. I think athletes in general fall down a trap of results being tied to identity.
"I needed to learn that in order to enjoy the whole process a little bit more. To go into races with no expectation, but pure enjoyment, and to fall back in love with that process again, and to fall back in love with racing again."
Gold vindication
There are few easier ways to fall back in love with racing than getting a World Championship gold medal placed around your neck.
Seeing her name on the screen, as a winner, for the first time was special. Her teammates celebrating on the sidelines. Irish flags waving in the Chinese breeze. A refusal to let a bad result define her career culminating in gold vindication.
Yet, it was the sight of her family that drove it all home for her. Behind Fiona is a support network all rowing in line together to realise a dream. The 6am drives to training with her parents, eating dinners in the car on the way to practice after work, the missed milestones.
Fiona's gold medal is a result of sacrifice, resilience, and accepting setbacks as part of the story.
"To learn a whole new skill in such a short space of time, 12 months after me debating retiring, to become a world champion, you couldn't write it.
"I think it's a massive testament to how I made sure that I didn't let one result define my life or my career or how I thought of myself as an athlete," Murtagh affirms.
Starting rowing at 12 years of age, Fiona found her first love. Rowing has brought her on a scholarship to New York, taking a break and returning to Galway, finding her way back to join the national set up in 2020, being part of the team that brought Ireland's first women's rowing Olympic medal home, a devastating blow four years later that resulted in retirement contemplations, to a new lease of life in sculling that has Fiona quietly dreaming of Los Angeles in two years' time.
Nobody's journey is the same and Fiona's is one she wouldn't change for the world. It's a testament to patience and waiting for your time. It's an example of how our most positive moments can be born from our lowest ebb. We just have to be willing to take the risk and try something new.
"The last year has definitely taught me to have patience and trust in your own journey, to trust your own process, and have faith in that," she says.
"I don't fear failure. Dealing with that weight of expectation is something that I'm definitely better at. I don't succumb to that weight in the way that I used to, I think, which I think is incredibly important, and it's made racing and training much more enjoyable when you're just more present in the moment."
At the elite level, everybody has the talent. It's between the two ears where the difference is made. Driven by a fearless perseverance and an impregnable sense of calm, Fiona's mental fortitude might just be the needle mover.
Comeback stories are sweeter because of what came before them. Murtagh's career is proof that the lowest point of a career can also be the beginning of its finest chapter. It's a case of delving within and stripping away the limits we set ourselves.
As she turns her sights to the season ahead, Los Angeles in 2028 hovers in the background. But Murtagh isn't making promises or setting expectations - true to the philosophy that's marked her career.
This is a woman who turned retirement talk into a world title within twelve months. It would take a brave person to bet against her.
