Jennings and Lynch make right moves to reach finals

Sinead Jennings and Sam Lynch yesterday franked the form they have shown during the year to make A finals in the World Championships for non-Olympic events at Zagreb in Croatia.

Jennings, with a haul of two silvers and a bronze from World Cup regattas, has established a trend this year - her first as a sculler - of taking the lead in many of her races, and came home first yesterday in the lightweight single scull semi-final.

This time, however, the Donegal woman did not set the early pace, with Britain's Tracey Langlands filling that role only to fade to third as Jennings took control from halfway. Mirjam Terbeek of the Netherlands was second.

In tomorrow's final Jennings' main rivals are likely to be the three women who filled the top three places in the other semi-final: Finland's Laila Finska-Bezerra, Lisa Schlenker of the United States and Germany's Angelika Brand.

In the men's lightweight single scull finals tomorrow, Sam Lynch knows that his main rival may be the man who finished ahead of him in yesterday's semi-final. Michal Vabrousek of the Czech Republic won a silver medal at last year's World Championships in St Catharines in Canada, and is hoping to go one better this year having failed to make the Olympics as part of a lightweight double scull.

Lynch, the gold medallist at the World Cup regatta in Lucerne, was a little slow at the start. He allowed Vabrousek to build up a lead of a second or so, and with three to qualify it made no sense for the Limerick man to race hard to win the semi-final.

However, Ireland team manager Mick O'Callaghan believes our two qualifiers for finals will do well tomorrow: "I'd be looking for at least two silvers," he said.

For the Ireland men's and women's quadruple sculls such dreams ended yesterday. The women's quad finished fifth in their semi-final, while the men's finished sixth, with neither in with a real chance of qualification. Their B finals follow tomorrow's A finals.