Rowing for Gold – the local connection with Imogen Magner
July 13, 2024
Imogen Magner will be rowing for Ireland in the upcoming Olympics in Paris. Imogen started rowing in 2016 after a career playing tennis as a junior. She entered the GB rowing ‘Start’ programme in 2018 before trialing in the Irish system in 2022. Imogen represented Ireland for the first time at the 2023 European Championships, winning the B final in the women’s pair with Natalie Long. Imogen is part of the W4-, which have their sights on gold for the 2024 Paris Olympics. The other three girls in the boat are Aifric Keogh, Eimear Lambe and Fiona Murtagh.
The 25-year-old switched allegiance from Britain to Ireland last year, courtesy of her late paternal grandfather John Magner. That same John Magner, and his father David Magner, were from Killavullen, and emigrated to the UK, like so many other Irish people in the early part of the last century. Her interest in rowing occurred while living in Barcelona by a glimpse of the Olympic canal constructed for the 1992 Games at a time when she was pursuing a very different goal.
She trained as a tennis player from the age of 12 to 17 full-time in Spain. Imogen was home schooled, and went on to study Zoology in Reading University, combining her studies with some coaching roles, in Tennis and Rowing. Imogen and her family came over to Ireland in 2018 and met some of her relatives, in and around Killavullen, where the Magner name is frequent.
The Irish crew qualified for the Olympics, after winning the Women’s four event, at the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta in Lucerne, Switzerland, in May. Given the other three in the boat, had, along with Emily Hegarty, won bronze in Tokyo, Imogen must have a sporting chance of getting a medal in Paris, and we all in Killavullen, will be following her pathway with huge interest.