ROWING Munich Regatta: When the Irish lightweight men's four won a silver medal at the World Cup regatta in Munich on Saturday it was a cause for celebration and deliberation for athletes and selectors alike.
The crew, including Richard Archibald, Eugene Coakley, Niall O'Toole and Paul Griffin, have improved dramatically from their sixth place at last year's world championships in Milan, which carried with it a qualifying slot for the Athens Olympics.
But Saturday's success will have given those in charge, including director of coaching Thor Nilsen, a major headache. Ever since winning a ticket to the Olympics last August eight athletes have been fighting for a seat in the crew and at the Duisburg regatta in Germany eight days ago they won two gold medals rowing as two different crew combinations.
One of those line-ups included Timmy Harnedy in the number-three seat in place of O'Toole, twice winner of the world lightweight singles title. In Munich O'Toole was back in the crew, but Ireland's high-performance director, Richard Parr, had promised to race Harnedy for the next World Cup regatta, in Lucerne in three weeks' time.
Whether he will now make that change or stick with a winning combination remains to be seen.
It wasn't just the silver medal that caused one of the major surprises in Munich - it was also the manner in which the crew performed that impressed. By winning their heat and semi-final they beat the Danish world champions on successive days.
In the final itself they were neck and neck in second place with Chile behind the Italian world bronze medallists before Archibald made his call and the crew raised their rate and pulled ahead. Ireland were still closing on Italy at the line.
So the spotlight has shifted from Ireland's traditional top performers, Sam Lynch and Gearóid Towey, who this weekend chose to compete in the heavyweight division of the double sculls, to gain better race experience.
There they met Tomascz Kucharski and Robert Sycz, the Polish Olympic champions from Sydney, but a good big crew will always beat a good small one, as the saying goes, and both Ireland and Poland were pushed into the small final, where Lynch and Towey won, almost two seconds ahead of the Poles, to gain seventh place overall.
Their time on the 2000-metre course was six minutes, 44 seconds, a full seven seconds faster than the time recorded by the Italian world champions, who won the lightweight doubles three hours later.
In the women's lightweight doubles, former world singles champion Sinéad Jennings and partner Heather Boyle have yet to win an Olympic place after Jennings finished 16th last year in Milan with Fiola Foley. On Saturday, Jennings and Boyle put in their best ever performance to finish eighth overall but must succeed at the qualifying regatta in Lucerne later this month if they are to compete in Athens.
It wasn't just the lightweights who showed promise in Munich. Heavyweight single sculler Seán Casey of Muckross has spent the last few years honing his skills on the US sculling circuit and reached the semi-finals of the Diamond Sculls last year at Henley Royal Regatta, losing to the eventual winner of the event, Alan Campbell.
In Munich, Casey got as far as the small final, finishing eighth overall, and now plans to travel to Lucerne to chase qualification for Athens. Simply to qualify will be an historic event - the last Irish heavyweight sculler to compete at the Olympics was Seán Drea in Montreal in 1976.
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