James Lindsay-Fynn Olympic Legacy James Lindsay-Fynn has made a far-sighted act of generosity at the age of 44 by pledging a legacy to Trinity that will benefit the university in years to come. Since the granting of Trinity’s Charter over 400 years ago, legacies have played a pivotal role in the college’s evolution. Each legator has a unique and personal motivation for remembering Trinity in their will and for James Lindsay-Fynn it is his connection to Trinity’s Boat Club. James came to Trinity in 1994 and took up the blade for Dublin University Boat Club (DUBC). He worked his way up to the senior VIII in his first year when they won the Intermediate Championship of Ireland before moving to the international stage in a coxless pair with Mark Pollock in 1997. James says he pledged a legacy to Trinity because he and DUBC “directly benefited from the generosity of alumni.” James hopes his legacy will maintain Trinity’s high-performance sporting platform, allowing current and future talent to flourish. He says that his “Trinity and Boat Club experience would have been far less fulfilling if others had not given back to the university, both in terms of their time and financially.” A key milestone during his Trinity rowing days was, “winning the Senior VIII’s event at the Trinity Regatta and beating the incumbent Irish champions for the first time. It was a pivotal moment for a young college crew to beat a far more experienced crew of Irish international oarsmen.” As Captain, James had great ambitions for the Boat Club and understood the importance of fundraising early on in his career. He wrote in the ‘Captain’s Report’ in DUBC News in 1998: “If DUBC is to maintain the success achieved so far but is also to further this, it is essential that we adopt the systems of those clubs that have continued to beat us in Henley finals. I see this as a three-tier move: first to attract talented oarsmen to the club, secondly to have a permanent semiprofessional coaching system and thirdly to finance this in the form of sponsorship.” He believes that “great institutions have always stayed ahead of the pack because of the additional support they have received from their alumni.” Continue reading.