Irish four book Sydney place in style

Yes, they are that good. The Irish men's lightweight four who we believed would make the Olympics did so yesterday - and how!

Neville Maxwell, Neal Byrne, Gearoid Towey and Tony O'Connor needed to take first or second place in yesterday's final and qualified in superb fashion, disputing the lead with Germany right through the race and then taking on and beating them - by 0.26 seconds - in the last 100 metres as the crowd cheered the crews home. Britain never looked likely to take anything other than third, and finished in that position.

"That was the most pressurised ever," said Byrne afterwards. "I am so glad that week is over."

The crew has, after all, been together only since Easter, and surely the most encouraging thing about them is that they have been improving with each race. Yesterday they had no difficulties with the slow start which has worried some observers.

"That was probably the best start we've had," confided Byrne, who said it was a real advantage to have lane four, with Britain on one side and Germany on the other.

Were they conscious that the Germans were leading with less than 100 metres to go? Towey, who threw his arms out and then kissed the back of O'Connor's neck when they crossed the line, laughed and said his concentration was solely on rowing, but Byrne said he knew it was there for the Irish.

Maxwell said that this race was more pressurised than an Olympic final because "if you don't produce in this one race you are out. No Olympic Games, nothing. So there has been a lot of pressure all week. I don't think we have rowed as well as we can here."

The fact that, with O'Connor, Derek Holland and Sam Lynch, he was part of the lightweight four which came through a qualifier for the 1996 games was a factor, Maxwell said, but now the pressure was off to some extent.

"Everything we are going to do now is what we were looking to do. We were very unlucky in Atlanta, the Americans beat us by half a length (the Irish four finished fourth in the Olympic final). And we learned a lot in that race about pressure and how to deal with it.

"In the Olympics, without sounding cliched, it is just brilliant to be there, so you look forward to each race because you know that you are going out there to row as best you can, whereas here you are on the edge of the cliff, you could go one way or the other."

The crew return to Ireland today, and then, Maxwell said, the plan is to go to Australia a month before the Games, where he expects further improvement. "We are going fast, we know we are going fast," he said, citing their fine performance against the Australian heavyweight four at Henley Royal Regatta in the semi-final of the Stewards Cup, their last race before Lucerne.

Earlier the conditions were certainly not reminiscent of Australia as a cold driving rain set in for the lightweight double final, where Ireland's Niall O'Toole and Derek Holland could only finish fifth, missing out on a qualification place.

The Irish had fought grimly to stay in touch with leaders Spain and Poland, but ultimately had given their all by the last 200 metres and saw Sweden and, at the very end, the Czech Republic, come through them. Poland won and Spain took the second automatic qualification place.

Fading back to fifth may yet prove very costly for Ireland. A press release issued as racing began confirmed that there were extra places for Sydney available to competitors in this qualifier. Because of the doubling up of rowers in some disciplines in Sydney, some of the 550 places allocated would now be open to competitors who did not fill the qualification criteria laid down in advance, and it is understood small boats, such as the single or double sculls, may be given special consideration.

"Based on the quality of performance and depth of entry" here the rowing governing body FISA will allocate the places. Since Ireland have only one boat qualified, the case for another would have been particularly strong if the lightweight double had just missed out here.

Germany suffered a double disappointment here: their men's eight lost out to Canada and Croatia for the two places available in Sydney, and their women's eight also finished in the heartbreaking third place, behind Belarus and Germany.

However, Dutchman Gerard Egelmeers certainly seems to have the art of qualifying by the skin of his teeth down to a tee. The men's single sculler won his place in the final by less than half a second and yesterday took the third place available at Sydney by pipping Slovenia's Erik Tul. Britain's Matthew Wells took second in this race, which was won by Jan Ziska of Slovakia.

This was always a day when there would be hard-luck stories, and 42-year-old Australian Peter Antonie had one of the saddest. The gold medallist at the Barcelona Olympics was bidding to compete in his fourth Olympics and, with 300 metres left, the double scull which he stroked looked set to secure second place in the final to Spain.

But three boats, led by Croatia, swept through to push himself and James Burton all the way back to fifth and out of the reckoning for the Olympics, even with the extra places available.