Donegal's Sinéad Jennings suffered heartbreak in the final of the lightweight single sculls at the World Rowing Championships in Spain this morning, by finishing 4th, only just outside the medals.
British sculler Jo Hammond shot to an early lead but it wasn't long before Jennings snatched that from her and headed the field.
With only 250m to go the Irish woman looked every inch the winner leading from German Nina Gaesler in second, but then disaster struck, Jennings hit something, possibly a buoy, and stopped completely dead in the water just metres short of the line falling from the lead to fourth at the finish, as a result. Instead it was Gaesler of Germany who took the title with Hammond staying on for silver and Finnish Sculler Mina Niemeinen picking up her first world medal with a bronze.
Timmy Harnedy lined up in a extremely competitive B final and put in a classy performance to take 2nd, a mere eight hundredths of a second behind the winner, Russian Denis Moiseyev. For the Skibbereen Club man this 8th place overall finish is a significant improvement on his 14th overall placing in the World Cup at Lucerne. It gives him a timely boost as he heads back to the Irish pre-Olympic camp in Zagreb to assist in fine-tuning preparations there; the 21 year old will travel to Athens as the Irish team 'spare'.
The Irish lightweight quad made up of Limerick men Brian Young and Kenny McDonald, Galway native Herbie Griffin and Kildare's Diarmúid McColgan put in a good row in the B final of their discipline to take 2nd place behind the more experienced British crew. The Irish crew, three of who are competing in their first World Championships indicate the future is bright for Irish Lightweight sculling and they will have found the experience gained in Banyoles this week invaluable.
There was further disappointment for Irish Lightweight Pair Neil Casey and Derek Holland as they were forced to withdraw from their B final this morning. Dubliner Holland suffered a recurrence of the infection that cut short their participation in Lucerne at the World Cup last month and naturally it was in Derek's best interests for the pair to withdraw and focus on his recovery.