Nationals shift venue

ROWING: On another excellent day for Irish athletes at the World Cup regatta in Munich the news from home also competed for the headline - next weekend's National Senior and Intermediate Championships have been transferred from the National Rowing Centre in Cork to Blessington after the water level at Inniscarra dropped too low because of work by the ESB on a turbine.

In Munich the performance level showed no sign of dropping as all four crews made it to today's semi-finals, with world champions Sam Lynch in the lightweight single scull and lightweight pair of Gearóid Towey and Tony O'Connor in the lightweight pair convincingly winning their heats.

The men's lightweight four of Paul Griffin, Richard Archibald, Neil Casey and Derek Holland made it straight through to the semi-final by finishing third in high-quality four-boat heat. Australia won the race, surprisingly beating Denmark into second in a fast race and Ireland took third, pushing the Netherlands into the repechages.

"They have a fighting chance of making the A final," said national coach Hamish Burrell of the Ireland crew.

The newly-formed lightweight double of Eugene Coakley and Neal Byrne finished fourth in their heat and thus needed a repechage last evening to make the semi-final. They won it and would now also be targeting an A final place in this, an Olympic event.