Rowing: Problems with making the weight? First time together in a competitive event? It certainly didn't look like it as the lightweight double of Sam Lynch and Gearoid Towey qualified for today's semi-finals at the World Cup regatta in Lucerne by winning their heat by almost four seconds yesterday.
As it was their first outing in a regatta as a crew, the Irish were in the outside lane here, but they made light of it by burning off the challenge of Germany and Japan between 750 and 1,250 metres, and having it their own way from there.
The two said afterwards the race had turned out as they'd planned. "We were pleased enough with it," said Lynch. "If crews don't think they can win they may give up. And we had clear water," added Towey.
This is one of the biggest events here, an Olympic discipline with 26 crews competing. So what would be a good result overall? "To win it," says Lynch, before Towey explains that they will take each day as it comes.
Ireland's other lightweight double, Skibbereen's Eugene Coakley and Timmy Harnedy, missed out on direct qualification for the A and B semi-finals by finishing second in their heat to Russia, but won their repechage last evening.
Coakley and Harnedy, both in their early 20s, only needed to take second to make it through the "back door" of the rep but actually raced Switzerland to the finish, and gained a slightly better lane draw today by virtue of their victory by .17 of a second.
Three of the five other Ireland crews also have a chance of making tomorrow's A finals after making it through to the A/B semi-finals through repechages.
The men's lightweight coxless four, made up of three of the crew which placed seventh in the World Championships in Seville last year - Richard Archibald, Derek Holland and Paul Griffin - and Niall O'Toole, produced a stirring finish to qualify.
With only the first and second making the A/B semis, the Irish looked to have lost their chance when relegated to third with 250 metres to go, but they upped their rate and drove past Spain and almost headed Russia.
With tight competition for places in the Olympic boats for men, the lightweight four and double, O'Toole, who won a world championship as a lightweight single sculler back in 1991, is still in the reckoning with the other world championship winners, Towey (lightweight pair 2001) and Lynch (lightweight single 2001, 2002).
The other Olympic boat, the women's lightweight double of Sinead Jennings and Fiola Foley, also made the A/B semis after a tight repechage.
They had finished a disappointing fourth in their heat, but the Irish just held onto the necessary second place after a battle with Cuba, who missed out, and Spain, who won.
Heather Boyle, who with Foley formed Ireland's crew at the first World Cup regatta in Milan, competed in the lightweight single here and made it through to today's A/B semi-finals with a convincing win in the repechage in the climbing temperatures of the afternoon when the warmer water made for faster times.
Unfortunate to face in-form Romanian Liliana Niga in her heat yesterday morning, the Galway woman could only manage second, but she made up for it with her repechage win in a time of seven minutes 54.93 seconds - the fastest of the day in the event.
Ireland's two other non-Olympic crews also ended up in repechages, but with less success.
In the lightweight single sculls Brian Young finished fourth in his heat and fifth in his rep. The lightweight men's pair of Neil Casey and Herbie Griffin were closer to qualification in both heat and repechage, but fifth and fourth also saw them miss out on an A/B semi-final place.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)