Rowing: The Ireland men's lightweight four (LM4-) booked their place at this year's Beijing Olympics after finishing a comfortable second behind Germany in today's final at the Olympic qualifying regatta in Poznan, Poland.
The crew of Paul Griffin, Richard Archibald, Gearoid Towey and Cathal Moynihan raced in lane two, alongside Germany in lane three, and booked one of the two Olympic berths in a time of six minutes 34 seconds.
Although the Irish boat never threatened the German's winning time of 6:03.97 they stuck to their game plan of a strong first half of the race and finished almost three seconds ahead of the Serbian boat in third (6:09.57).
"It feels great," said Moynihan shortly after the Irish quartet they came off the water to collect their medals. "It has been a dream of mine since I was twelve and we're delighted we did the business.
"The pressure was immense; coming from ourselves really. We've put so much on the line just to make it to Beijing and now we can move on and focus on the Games, we're delighted."
The lightweight crew will now join the heavweight four in Beijing after the latter booked their place from the World Championships in Munich last year. The crews for both boats are expected to be finalised on July 17th.
Today's good news comes after yesterday's disappointment when the men's pair and lightweight double failed to nail down places in today's finals.
The pair of Jonno Devlin and Seán Casey came within .26 of a second of the crucial third place in their semi-final, but the Coakley brothers, Eugene and Richard, could not break out of fifth in their race.
Results:
Men's Lightweight Four Final
1 Germany (6:03.97)#
2 Ireland (6:06.34)#
3 Serbia (6:09.57)
4 Spain (6:11.80)
5 Czech Republic (6:12.23)
6 Switzerland (6:13.66)
# Qualified for Beijing Olympics