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 of Leitrim. A smaller part of the town lies in County Roscommon. The population of the town was 4,062 in 2016. It is situated on a stra ...

County Leitrim County Leitrim ( ; gle, Contae Liatroma) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Connacht and is part of the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the village of Leitrim. Leitrim County Council is the local authority f ...

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern ...

) is an Irish rower and

Olympian Olympian or Olympians may refer to: Religion * Twelve Olympians, the principal gods and goddesses in ancient Greek religion * Olympian spirits, spirits mentioned in books of ceremonial magic Fiction * ''Percy Jackson & the Olympians'', fiction ...

Rowing career

Cryan started rowing as the

River Shannon The River Shannon ( ga, Abhainn na Sionainne, ', '), 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 the island of Ireland. The Sha ...

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, whether natural or artificial, that is large enough for manoeuvering the shells (rowing boats). Clubs usually have a boat house w ...

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

Single Scull A single scull (or a scull) is a rowing boat 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-section in order to mini ...

s Champion from the years 1976–1986 inclusive.

Olympics

Cryan competed at the

1980 Summer Olympics The 1980 Summer Olympics (russian: Летние Олимпийские игры 1980, Letniye Olimpiyskiye igry 1980), officially known as the Games of the XXII Olympiad (russian: Игры XXII Олимпиады, Igry XXII Olimpiady) and commo ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

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

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

at the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a multi ...

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

1980 Summer Olympics boycott The 1980 Summer Olympics boycott was one part of a number of actions initiated by the United States to protest against the Soviet–Afghan War, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviet Union, which hosted the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, a ...

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. However due to constant ninth-place finishes at the

World Rowing Championships The World Rowing Championships is an international rowing regatta organized by FISA (the International Rowing Federation). It is a week-long event held at the end of the northern hemisphere summer and in non- Olympic years is the highlight of ...

, 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 (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

to train. Despite this, Cryan's performance at the 1980 Olympics was voted by readers of the '' Leitrim Observer'' to have been County Leitrim's greatest sporting moment, beating out

Leitrim GAA The Leitrim County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) ( ga, Cumann Lúthchleas Gael Coiste Chontae Liatroma) or Leitrim GAA is one of the 32 county boards of the GAA in Ireland, and is responsible for Gaelic games in County Leitrim ...

's 1994 Connacht Senior Football Championship victory and

Breege Connolly Breege Connolly (born 1 February 1978) is an Irish marathon runner. She placed 76th at the 2016 Olympics ) , nations = 207 (including IOA and EOR teams) , athletes = 11,238 , events = 306 in 28 sports (41 disciplines) , opening = 5 August ...

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