Conor Holmes competed in the men’s K-2 500 metres and K-2 1000 metres canoe sprint events at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games alongside Alan Carey, failing to advance beyond the repechage in both events at Lake Banyoles. A member of the Salmon Leap Canoe Club in Leixlip, Holmes was part of a dedicated group of Irish flat-water canoeists who committed to full-time training for the Barcelona Games, basing themselves at the Richmond Club in London under former British Canoe Union coach Brian Greenaway.

t Barcelona, under the intense pressure of Olympic competition, cohesion and technique ‘totally unravelled’ and the inevitable elimination followed in the repechage of both events.