Olympic Rower trades Oars for Dance Floor

Two-time Olympian, Paris 2024 Olympic bronze medallist and two-time World Rowing Championship medallist, Ireland’s Philip Doyle has had a busy few years. So why not throw in a live television dance competition? The Irish sculler spent the last few months on Dancing with the Stars Ireland, trading early morning water sessions for sequins, samba and some hard lessons in hip mobility. With the finale just wrapped and St. Patrick’s Day around the corner, we caught up with Doyle on the drive to his final rehearsal.

How did the opportunity to do Dancing with the Stars come about?

Purely by chance, an Instagram DM (direct message) and an email. Usually I flick past odd messages, but this one I gave some thought, replied, and then met the production team. I kept it a secret for a long time because I was still on the fence. It’s a huge time commitment, nine weeks of the live show plus three weeks of pre-rehearsals.

And honestly? A little part of me always wanted to learn to dance. After Paris I tried to learn piano and guitar… tried being the biggest word there. I’m big into this feeling of neuroplasticity and continually evolving and improving your brain’s pathways to learn new skills. I’ve been rowing for 11 years, so it’s nice to try new things, nice to see if the body can do different things and learn a new skill, so that’s one of the main reasons.

I’ve always wanted to salsa as well. I’ve seen a few salsa events and I’ve always felt like I’d like to join in, so I thought why not see if there’s an aptitude there, get a flash in the pan in that dance world and see if I had any aptitude if I could push it on?

What were the reactions from your teammates and coaches?

Fintan McCarthy, my men’s double sculls (M2x) partner, turned around after we won our medal at the 2025 World Rowing Championships and said, “you’re absolutely not doing that dancing show.” And I just laughed at him because at that stage I still hadn’t decided whether or not I would do it.

The head coach, Dominic, messaged me when he found out and basically said good luck, enjoy it, let me know when it’s over. So to be honest, the teammates and everyone have been very encouraging, it’s a very positive reaction. If my teammates can get away from training, they come up. It’s actually been quite a positive experience.

You’ve had incredible success with different rowing partners. How did you use those skills with a new dancing partner?

Having had three or four M2x partners over the years definitely helped, knowing how to work with different people, understand their strengths, and be clear about your own role. Working as a doctor helped too. Every day at the hospital there’s a different cohort of people and you have to figure out quickly how to operate within that team.

With Daniela, my pro dance partner, she was the expert in dance, full stop. But I know my body. I know what it can and can’t do. There had to be a mutual respect for both levels of experienceI thought we might clash a bit, two driven athletes together, but we built a really strong friendship. It turns out it helps when the other person is just a good human.

Did dancing change how you think about rhythm in the boat?

Interestingly, I heard the British rowing team was sent to do ballroom lessons years ago to try to improve timing and rhythm. But I haven’t been in a boat since the end of November. My last row was actually a 20km row with a young under-23 New Zealand athlete when I was in Auckland, so I’m looking forward to seeing if it helps.

I’d say the one thing I have learned, which I kind of knew beforehand, is that slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Better technique and a smoother stroke will end up faster than just taking a harder, faster stroke and then being out of time.

Did dancing expose weaknesses in your movement that rowing never does? And what strengths from rowing helped you stand out from other competitors?

Absolutely. Rowing is a completely closed movement. I’m strong, I have power, I have endurance, but what it showed is that I have no mobility in my hips. It exposed a two-year injury from Paris, so the samba and the Latin dances especially just showed that lack of movement. The choreographers would be trying to push my hip a certain way and I was like, no, I know with 110% certainty I cannot do that. We had to find workarounds.

Posture was the other big one. My partner was 1.70m and I’m 1.98m, so there’s nearly 30cm between us, and it just looked like I was towering over her in all the ballroom numbers. We had to really work on getting me tall, keeping my chin high. That slouch you get from years in the boat, feet strapped in, pulling back and forwards with the hips, it just exposes that tight, restricted mobility. Big time.

As for strengths, I was dubbed the King of Lifts. They made sense to me, as a result of gym movements and different things. My dance partner was just like, can you do this? And then I would just do it. She said, how did you do that? And I’m like, I don’t know, it just feels natural. So that was a big strength that I brought to the partnership.

Ireland has such a strong culture of music and dance alongside sport. Did taking part in Dancing with the Stars Ireland change how you think about representing Ireland beyond the race course?

Ireland does have a very strong dance and musical culture. We have our own version of Irish dancing, which is now a worldwide thing, and we have our traditional music. Most people when they come to Ireland love to go to pubs and listen to trad. But no, it hasn’t changed my thought process. The race course is my one and only opportunity really to represent Ireland on that kind of stage. Hopefully one day I might create or think of some medical invention that’ll represent the country well, but I think rowing is my only way to do that for now.

Did the show allow people to see a side of you that doesn’t come through in rowing media?

The dance show was a great opportunity to bring rowing to the forefront of the Irish public. One of the judges commented one week that rowers shouldn’t be able to move like that, and I was like, well, I guarantee you lots of us can. We’re very talented athletes with a lot of abilities that people just don’t see.

People always say they’re resilient, tough, hard working, the endurance, the power, the passion. But I think we’re a lot more surprising and intriguing as individuals than what the public gets to see. I’d challenge rowers out there to bring more of that to the forefront. I’ve had some luck on social media where I bring a lifestyle element to it, and people love the medical side of what I do too. But there’s probably a bit more onus on us as athletes to create a better reputation and interaction with the public, to bring more fans and viewership to the sport because ultimately that’s how it grows.

Speaking of media, over the years you’ve done a great job at bringing people along your Olympic journey through social media. What advice would you have to other athletes who may be hesitant about sharing, or don’t know where to start?

Just start sharing. Share the journey, put your own spin on it, tell your story. There are a couple of New Zealand rowers and Great Britain athletes at the minute just sharing their story, sharing insights behind the scenes. Don’t be afraid to post that video.

For some rowers there’s very much a feeling of unless I break a 2,000m world record there’s no point posting your erg times, but there’s only going to be one world record holder in the world at one time. Coming up through college especially, I really tried to share the journey of being a rower and a student athlete and I didn’t care that my splits were slow or fast or whatever. I was just sharing the journey.

You want to show stuff that’s impressive, but you also want to show the journey and show a true, realistic insight into training without giving up way too much.

Being an Olympic medallist is often seen as all-consuming. What do you hope your journey shows young athletes about balancing sport with other passions?

What I wanted to do was show people that there’s no such thing as you can’t do something. I think a lot of rowers think they have to be full-time rowers or bust. Rowing Ireland is a smaller national body, so I am able to kind of do my own thing a little bit. I go back to work, I take on other projects. Ultimately that’s up to me because I understand the start line and the trials process.

I want to show people that they don’t have to give up other parts of life just to be a rower. I don’t want people to have to quit this sport before they want to quit. I want people to decide to leave when they’re ready, not feel like the sport is so all-consuming that they can’t find a balance or do more than one thing at once.

Now that the show is over, what does the season ahead look like?

I’m rehabbing the back and the hip at the minute. It depends on how that goes because it’s kind of been an injury there for two years, and if I want to look forward to Los Angeles 2028 I need to make sure I’m back strong and ready. The World Rowing Cup in Seville is probably out of the question but the European Rowing Championships and the World Rowing Championships are very much my goal for this year.

It’s St. Patrick’s Day soon. How do you plan on celebrating? And are the celebrations across the country as wild as people may think?

I’m going out to Dublin on Sunday night after the finale of the dancing show, so I’ll have a Guinness then, and then from Monday I’ll be back in the gym rehabbing. St. Patrick’s Day is Tuesday, so I’ll have my Guinness Sunday night, relax Monday, and then I’ll be back at work on Tuesday. Unfortunately hospitals don’t stop work during the holidays, so St. Patrick’s Day I’ll be wearing green scrubs.

Celebrations in Ireland for St. Patrick’s Day are great. There’s always a big night out and people in Ireland will always use any excuse to celebrate. But I’d actually say the expat Irish in the USA celebrate it much harder than we do. Mostly because there are probably so many Irish people over there who just want to feel like they’re part of home.

If you had to describe Irish rowing in three words, what would they be?

Small but mighty. We’re a very aggressive rowing nation. We outperform people who have much better physiology than us, purely just because we’re just hard and aggressive.

Which two rowers would you most like to see take on Dancing with the Stars, one Irish and one international?

For the Irish pick, my M2x partner Fintan McCarthy. I’d love to see him come out of his shell even more and find out if he’s got any dance moves. Internationally, I’d like to see either Melvin Twellaar or Stef Broenink do it.