Sport

Fiona Murtagh and Aifric Keogh take World Cup silver in Italy

Philip Doyle and Daire Lynch took bronze in the men’s double

Silver medalists Fiona Murtagh and Aifric Keogh of Ireland pose for a photo. Photograph: Mattia Ozbot/Getty
Silver medalists Fiona Murtagh and Aifric Keogh of Ireland pose for a photo. Photograph: Mattia Ozbot/Getty
Sun Apr 14 2024 - 15:53

Irish crews picked up two medals at the World Cup rowing event in Italy on Sunday morning, with Fiona Murtagh and Aifric Keogh winning silver in the women’s pair final on Lago di Varese, as Philip Doyle and Daire Lynch took bronze in the men’s double.

Up against reigning world champions Veronique Meester and Ymkje Clevering of the Netherlands, the crew from Galway were happy with their medal.

“It’s our second event since Worlds, our second event in the pair together so we’re constantly learning and this is a good start to the Olympic year” said Fiona Murtagh. On the last few months since the World Championships, Aifric Keogh said, “We’ve had a really good winter together, I think this is the longest we’ve ever been in one boat, usually it’s a lot of chopping and changing so that’s been nice, it gives us the space to try things out”.

The men’s double of Philip Doyle and Daire Lynch are also coming home with silverware after winning bronze. Just squeezing past the German crew into third position coming to the line, the medals were theirs for the taking. “We had one of our fastest starts ever” said Doyle. “And then we looked around and we weren’t in the medal contentions. The plan was we had a sprint up our sleeves to go early at the 700 meters but then Daire called it early at 750 metres.”

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“A part of me was looking at the stroke coach thinking, how is this going to last? But, it did and I knew from the speed on the stroke coach that we were coming into the medals no matter what happened because no one could match what we were doing”.