Irish double of gold standard

ROWING: The Rotsee in Lucerne, the Lake of the Gods to the modest locals, is becoming a favourite venue for Irish rowers. Yesterday lightweight single sculler Sam Lynch and the lightweight pair of Tony O'Connor and Gearóid Towey, who won gold at the World Championships in Lucerne last year, repeated the feat with wins in the World Cup regatta. Liam Gorman reports

The men's lightweight four, an Olympic-class crew, chipped in an excellent first place in the B final - effectively seventh at this top-class regatta - and the women's lightweight double of Sinéad Jennings and Heather Boyle were fourth in their B final.

Given that Jennings won gold at the World Championships last year as a single sculler the result may have been a little disappointing, even with the move into an Olympic event, but the Donegal woman has been struggling with a neck problem in the last few months and national coach Hamish Burrell, who guided her to gold last year, said he was reasonably happy with the result, which would put the Irish crew at around Olympic qualification standard.

"Given the last eight weeks and the problems with Sinead's neck, that was the best we would have hoped for here," he said. "I wasn't sure they would be able to last in this regatta," he added. Jennings will have an MRI scan tomorrow.

Lynch, too, had his problems, but they were reportedly the less worrying ones of coming to terms with a new boat. On Saturday, in the semi-finals, he hit the buoys twice, and yesterday he was not as commanding as he usually is early on.

But the Limerickman has given the impression of a world champion who knows that sweeping to commanding wins in every race is one of the weapons in his armoury which inhibits others, and at the business end of yesterday's race he again saw off the opposition to win well.

O'Connor and Towey have also adapted to the role of world champions well. An early break by the Romanians in their final failed to panic the Irish, who were second at both the 500 and 1,000 metre marks but went on to win well.

Matthew Pinsent and James Cracknell were the big story of the regatta - but for reasons they would not have desired. In yesterday's men pair's final they were beaten into second place by Australia.

James Tomkins and Drew Ginn had already beaten the double world champions in Friday's heat and used the same tactics to blast away the British just past the halfway mark. They won by a length and a half, while Pinsent and Cracknell struggled to cross the line .08 of a second ahead of Croatia.

"Come the final in Seville I think that different things will happen," Pinsent said, referring to the World Championships in Seville in September.

Ireland's lightweight four may also now be looking forward to Seville after their fine performance yesterday. Paul Griffin, Richard Archibald, Neil Casey and Derek Holland gave the Irish a boost and Burrell said the result for this developing crew was "excellent". "It is almost a gold medal result for them," he said.

However Sebastiaan Peeters, the Ireland team liaison who had a big part in forming this crew, warned that in the absence of some of the best crews in the world, particularly Denmark, the performance had to be kept in perspective.

He said the switches in the boat - Holland's move to stroke and the decision to use "Italian rigging", where the two men in the middle of the boat row on the same side - was a decision which originated with the "mature" crew itself.

Back in Ireland, and the National Rowing Centre at Inniscarra Lake in Cork on Saturday, the novice and junior championships produced one terrific final.

There can be few sights in rowing more compelling than two eights going hammer and tongs for the line with the result in doubt right to the finish, and Neptune and St Joseph's, Galway - "the Bish" - provided the spectacle with nothing left out. Even the sun blazed down on the flat water.

Neptune, with 14-year-old Paul O'Brien at number five, bellowed with joy at the finish line, knowing they had held off the valiant St Joseph's challenge. They had got the verdict by a canvas.

For coach Walter Maguire it was his third junior eights title in-a-row, and one of what he estimated as "somewhere over 20" national titles in all.

Neptune's Seán Walsh and Aodhán Kelly were taking their third titles of the weekend, having also won fours and pairs crowns, but even they were one short of Skibbereen's Grace O'Brien and Karen Hickey, who took the equivalent junior women's titles and added in a quadruple sculls title for good measure.

Skibbereen's junior women's eight also recorded a third successive win in this class.

Junior women's single sculls champion Eimear Moran matched the feat, taking her eighth title. "My ambition is to go to the Junior Worlds this year and come in the top six, all going well," she said.

Robert Cronin won the junior single sculls in the last race of the day, doubling the roll of honour for Presentation College. Cronin had been part of the junior double win on Friday - their first title.