Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy began the defence of their Olympic title with a commanding performance in their heat on Sunday morning. The Skibbereen pair finished seven seconds ahead of Norway, in the slowest of the three heats, to secure a place in Wednesday’s semi-finals.
In a race they were expected to dominate, O’Donovan and McCarthy were in front at the 1,000m mark and were never under any threat. At these Games O’Donovan is attempting to become the first Irish athlete to win medals at three Olympics.
The women’s four, however, must contest a repechage on Tuesday after finishing third in their semi-final. With just nine crews in their event, only two boats qualified from each semi-final, with the remaining two places to be decided in the repechage.
Ireland’s women’s four won bronze at the Tokyo Games, with two of that crew, Eimear Lambe and Emily Hegarty, still in the boat.
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Picking up the thread from Saturday at the Paris Olympics, the Irish boats made a strong start on the second morning of the Olympic regatta. Aifric Keogh and Fiona Murtagh made a storming finish to their heat in the women’s pair, grabbing second place on the line, .01 of a second ahead of Czechia.
In the heat of the men’s pair 20 minutes later Ross Corrigan and Nathan Timoney were involved in a dramatic four-boat photo-finish, with the Fermanagh pair eking out the third qualifying spot with a desperate final lunge. They finished .02 of a second in front of the Swiss crew.
Keogh and Murtagh, who have finished on the podium at all three World Cup regattas this season, had a tough race and had a protracted duel with Team GB. But having finally burned them off for third place in the closing 200 metres they went in pursuit of Czechia and nabbed them in the final stroke of the race.
Keogh and Murtagh’s semi-final is on Wednesday, the same day as Timoney and Corrigan, who came through a titanic heat. The USA crew fell off the pace before halfway, but the other four boats were locked in a duel for the three qualifying spots.
The Irish crew were half a length down in fourth after 1,500m but they dug in, and in the final 100m of the race all four boats were sprinting. Spain and New Zealand filled the first two spots with Timoney and Corrigan just holding off the Swiss for third place.
The first setback of the regatta for Ireland came in the women’s lightweight double scull where Mags Cremen and Aoife Casey finished third in their heat, with only two semi-final spots available.
Team GB, who won the heat, have been unbeaten since the last Olympics so the race for second spot was essentially between Ireland and Greece. The Greeks got off to a fast start and kept the Irish crew at arm’s length for most of the race.
With 200 metres to go Cremen and Casey were 15 metres behind and they failed to close that gap, eventually finishing just over four seconds adrift of the Greeks. Cremen and Casey will go into a repechage tomorrow.
More to follow
