Meet the accountant about to go to his fourth consecutive Olympic Games

Such was his disappointment he quit rowing all together, only picking it back up after moving to Orange and when his kids showed interest.

The former Kinross Wolaroi School business manager used to take his scull out on Lake Canobolas and after years of campaigning, finally started up the school's rowing club at Spring Creek.

Still, it was just a hobby, until a now fateful holiday with his wife to Vietnam set in motion a life-changing course of events.

After noticing a sign for a rowing club in Hanoi in 2009, Donnelly made some enquiries and ended up being invited to watch the Vietnamese team in action.

"They were just rowing around the lake like lost sheep," he said.

"They had no program, nothing.

"Rowing was only established in Vietnam in 1996 and all the coaches in Vietnam at that time, which wasn't many, were swimmers."

Brought in to help fix Kinross' financial woes in 1982, Donnelly has never shied away from a challenge and taking the Southeast Asian country to the Olympics in a sport where they had little to no history was too good to pass up.

After accepting an offer to help coach the lightweight women's doubles crew, they qualified for the 2010 Asian Games and then London 2012 by the slimmest of margins, 0.2 seconds, a feat they repeated four years later to get to Rio.

"I qualified them for the Olympics by 0.2 of a second, which was the first time," he said.

"I've never felt anything like it, it was unbelievable.

"So that was the first time for London. Then for Rio a similar thing happened, we qualified by 0.2 of a second."

By now Donnelly had well and truly retired, travelling to Vietnam several times a year as a coach, mostly paying his way and not taking a full-time salary.

Massive success followed at the 2018 Asian Games, winning gold.

Then COVID hit and Vietnam's preparations for Tokyo 2020 were thrown into disarray.

Donnelly would go on to spend a year overseas, seemingly endless days in hotel quarantine and be subject to 43 COVID tests.

"After six months [in 2020], I got to go there but then I got stuck there for a year," he said.

"The COVID tests, I ended up having 43 of them in Japan in Vietnam, you name it.

"And I used to dread it because they hurt over there. They shove it up to your brain.

"So 43 of them and I spent I think over 40 days in quarantine because every time we travel, you come back into 10 days quarantine in Vietnam.

"Being in a hotel on your own is like being in prison.

"I had a really good crew in for Tokyo and we qualified easily."

So on the eve of his fourth Olympic Games, how does Donnelly look back on his career both as a rower and coach?

"I feel satisfied that I've qualified for four Olympics," he said.

"When I stopped rowing, I always wanted to go to the Olympics and I never did so I never thought I'd go to an Olympics and since I've coached Vietnam I've been to four!"