The eight athletes and two coaches had been in warm weather training at a venue between Dubai and Abu Dhabi and had seen their planned exit flight cancelled due to the war in the Middle East.
But they seized their chance and flew out of Abu Dhabi to Paris in the early hours of Saturday morning.
“We just got lucky,” said Liam Jegou, a double Olympian and one of the most experienced of the eight athletes.
“I was on Instagram and [saw that] one of the embassies posted that there were two commercial flights which had been updated by Etihad. [The departure time] was a couple of hours away.
“So we all got together. The performance director called Canoeing Ireland and asked was it OK to try and book these.
“They were OK with it – we booked and got all our stuff together, drove to Abu Dhabi and managed to fly out!”
But the airline did not want to take the boats.
“They were saying they were too long. We were all like: ‘What can we do with them?’ We could either abandon them or saw up the boats.”
Emirates airplanes at Dubai International Airport amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
Two of the Irish canoeists headed off to buy a saw. And then the Irish caught another break, as concerned locals heard about the plan with the saw.
“They enquired about what was going on. And, honestly, they were super friendly. They said ‘hold on, you can’t do this’.”
After a good bit of work in the background, the airline took the boats.
“None of them were damaged. So it’s brilliant!” Jegou said.
Jegou, who is back in his base in Pau in France, said the whole group were very happy to get home. They had received missile alerts while in the UAE.
Two flights they had booked were later cancelled.
“The group worked well together. And Canoeing Ireland were great with us.”
The team kept their spirits up. Canoeist Jake Cochrane said on Instagram that they got out at the right time. “Training wise, it was a really good, productive 10 days in the desert heat!”
The Ireland team were amongst the last to leave the training venue – the Czech team had had multiple visits to the airport and returns to the base as flights were cancelled.
The last of them left the day before the Irish.