Irish pair cruise into lightweight final

Three World Championship finalists and a recently-formed crew which has fought its way to an almost certain place in the Olympics - so far this is shaping up as the best World Championships ever for Irish rowing.

Yesterday the lightweight pair of Tony O'Connor and Neville Maxwell showed why they are favourites for the gold in their discipline with one of the most emphatic semi-final wins of the day: the moved clear of the field from the start and never relinquished their position to join lightweight sculler Sam Lynch and the lightweight quadruple scull in A finals.

O'Connor and Maxwell had beaten Italy into second place for their gold medal win in the World Cup regatta in Lucerne and wanted to emphasise their mastery here over Stefano Basilini (gold medal winner in the lightweight single scull) and Paolo Pittino (multi gold medal winner in the Italian quadruple scull).

"We got off to a flyer, which is important into a strong headwind," Maxwell explained. However the relative ease of the win (they beat the Italians by over two seconds and the third-placed Chile by nearly four) is of no use if they don't reproduce the same form in tomorrow's final. "The thing is to improve on that performance," added Maxwell.

The Galwayman made a point of praising the outstanding display of the lightweight double scull of Niall O'Toole and Derek Holland who finished third in their semi-final earlier in the day, going within .8 of a second of qualifying for the A final. "That was inspirational, fantastic," he said.

The plaudits were not misplaced. Teamed up for little more than a month, the two experienced oarsmen produced a gutsy display to very nearly grab qualification for the A final, being pushed into third place narrowly by the US. Winners Italy never really looked in danger.

The Irish now move into the B final today, where any position except last in the six-boat race will put them into the world's top 11 and guarantee a place in Sydney for an Irish lightweight double.

O'Toole seems remarkably focused at these championships and he reflected this in his comments afterwards: "We came here with a distinct job to do, to qualify the boat. We made sacrifices to do this, not giving medals the priority, and now we have a chance to complete the job tomorrow."

Holland (25) said he was very disappointed they had not made the A final, but echoed his colleague's comments. "It is important we get over today and qualify for tomorrow."

Today is also a big day for two of Ireland's A finalists - O'Connor and Maxwell go tomorrow - as Lynch and the lightweight quadruple scull attempt to win medals.

The strength of the competition faced by O'Toole and Holland yesterday can be gauged by the fact that this category had the second biggest entry here, and the strength of the competition in Olympic events in general could be seen in the men's heavyweight single sculls B final, where the winner of this year's Diamond Sculls at Henley, Marcel Hacker, and the man he beat in the final, former World Champion Jamie Koven of the US, just barely made the fourth and fifth places to gain Olympic qualification.

There was disappointment for the only Irish women's crew at the championships, the double scull. They set the early pace in the two-boat C final, but could not hold the lead after a charge by South Africa, who went on to win easily.

Single sculler Albert Maher ended his campaign with a fifth placing in the D final (18th to 24th in the world).