Pat McDonagh

Pat McDonagh holds a unique place in Irish Olympic history as one of only three Irish athletes to have competed at both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games.

He competed in rowing at Moscow 1980 and Seoul 1988 and in the bobsleigh at Albertville 1992 - where he and Terry McHugh formed one of two Irish two-man bobs that made Ireland's historic Winter Olympic debut, finishing 32nd of 46 teams.

A member of Commercial Rowing Club at the time of his first Olympics, McDonagh competed in the men's coxed four at Moscow 1980, finishing 11th alongside Iain Kennedy, David Gray, Ted Ryan and cox Noel Graham - a crew he later recalled as "a four that never really gelled."

At Seoul 1988 he competed in the coxed pair with Frank Moore. It was in Seoul that McDonagh first approached javelin thrower Terry McHugh about joining the Irish bobsleigh programme. He had begun his bobsleigh career in 1986 after being recruited at Henley Regatta by London-Irish businessman Larry Tracey, who established the Irish Bobsleigh Association.

The team qualified for Calgary 1988 but the OCI withdrew their entry without explanation ten days before the Games. At Albertville, McDonagh drove the two-man sled with McHugh as brakeman, competing alongside a second Irish bob piloted by Gerry Macken and Malachy Sheridan (38th).

From Inchicore in Dublin, McDonagh spent his career teaching art at Mourne Road Secondary School in Drimnagh.