Frances Cryan (born 3 December 1958,

Carrick on Shannon Carrick-on-Shannon () is the county town of County Leitrim in Ireland. It is the largest town in the county. A smaller part of the town located on the west bank of the River Shannon lies in County Roscommon and is home to the town's main train s ...

County Leitrim County Leitrim ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht and is part of the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the village of Leitrim, County Leitr ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

) is an Irish

rower Rowing, often called crew in the United States, is the sport of racing boats using oars. It differs from paddling sports in that rowing oars (called blades in the United Kingdom) are attached to the boat using rowlocks, while paddles are ...

and Olympian.

Rowing career

Cryan started rowing as the

River Shannon The River Shannon ( or archaic ') is the major river on the island of Ireland, and at in length, is the longest river in the British Isles. It drains the Shannon River Basin, which has an area of , – approximately one fifth of the area of I ...

flowed by the outside of her back garden. She and three friends from school started rowing together as a coxless four. They rowed together but they gradually moved away leaving Cryan to scull alone. In 1974, she joined Carrick on Shannon

Rowing club A rowing club is a club for people interested in the sport of rowing. Rowing clubs are usually near a body of water, either natural or artificial, that is large enough for maneuvering the rowing boats. Clubs usually have a boathouse with racks t ...

, one of Ireland's oldest rowing clubs. She was eleven times Irish Womens

Single Scull A single scull (or a scull), abbreviated as a 1x, is a racing shell designed for a single person who propels the boat with two oars, one in each hand. Racing boats (often called "shells") are long, narrow, and broadly semi-circular in cross-se ...

s Champion from the years 1976–1986 inclusive.

Olympics

Cryan competed at the

1980 Summer Olympics The 1980 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XXII Olympiad () and officially branded as Moscow 1980 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 19 July to 3 August 1980 in Moscow, Soviet Union, in present-day Russ ...

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

where she was placed seventh in the single sculls event, and was the first woman to compete in Rowing for

at the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

. Cryan was fifteen-hundredths of a second away from reaching the final. Cryan attributed this to the

1980 Summer Olympics boycott The 1980 Summer Olympics boycott was the largest boycott in Olympic history and one part of a number of actions initiated by the United States to protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviet Union, which hosted the 1980 Summ ...

allowing her to score higher as she felt a lot of the stronger competitors in rowing did not participate due to the boycott. After the 1980 Olympics, Cryan started working harder on her training with more weights practice. In 1983, she started to train in the United States in preparation for the

1984 Summer Olympics The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and commonly known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the ...

. However due to constant ninth-place finishes at the

World Rowing Championships The World Rowing Championships is an international Rowing (sport), rowing regatta organized by International Rowing Federation, FISA (the International Rowing Federation). It is a week-long event held at the end of the northern hemisphere summer ...

, the Irish Amateur Rowing Union voted against her being allowed to represent Ireland at the Olympics again as it was felt she had had her chance and due to her refusal to move to

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

to train. Despite this, Cryan's performance at the 1980 Olympics was voted by readers of the ''

Leitrim Observer The ''Leitrim Observer'' is the oldest newspaper in County Leitrim, Ireland. It is a weekly newspaper published every Wednesday and once competed with another newspaper called the '' Leitrim Post'' which closed in 2009. History The ''Leitrim O ...

'' to have been County Leitrim's greatest sporting moment, beating out

Leitrim GAA The Leitrim County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) () or Leitrim GAA is one of the 32 county boards of the GAA in Ireland, and is responsible for Gaelic games in County Leitrim. The county board is also responsible for the Leitrim ...

's 1994 Connacht Senior Football Championship victory and Breege Connolly.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cryan, Frances Living people Irish female rowers Olympic rowers for Ireland Rowers at the 1980 Summer Olympics Sportspeople from County Leitrim 1958 births People from Carrick-on-Shannon 20th-century Irish sportswomen