Below par Irish fail to reach final

Lack of racing experience this season and perhaps overconfidence seem the most likely suspects in the search for the cause of the below par performance of the men's lightweight four in yesterday's World Championship semi-final in Cologne. The Irish finished sixth and last.

"This was just something out of hell," said Neville Maxwell. The Irish never looked convincing in a race which the Australians won with some ease, but had a tentative hold on the third qualification place through 500, 1,000 and 1,500 metres.

However, it all went wrong in the third quarter, where, as Maxwell put it, "we should have stepped up a gear, but stepped down". "To be honest we were gone with 750 to go," said stroke Tony O'Connor.

With about 250 metres left O'Connor's oar hit a buoy as the boat drifted to the right, but this had no influence on the result.

With hindsight it is possible to see that a crew which had raced in seriously competitive races only twice this season - in a Copenhagen regatta where they pushed World Champions Denmark close and in winning the heat to qualify for the semi-final here - could be vulnerable when the going got tough in a race.

Superb times in training here may actually have been bad for the crew, lulling them into a sense that all they had to do was turn up to make the final.

The lack of racing was not the crew's fault, of course. They didn't compete in this formation in the three World Cup races at Munich, Hazewinkel and Lucerne this year through insufficient grant aid and a rib injury to O'Connor.

"We hadn't the money for Munich and I couldn't go to the other two," said the crew's stroke. Their superb row in the heat which sent them straight into the semi-final probably deprived them of the valuable racing experience they would have gained through a repechage, but few crews go out with the risky strategy of avoiding winning so as to make the repechage.

Among the most galling parts of the defeat for the Irish was that Britain, who rowed an admirably controlled race, finished second ("It's the first time I've ever been beaten by a British crew", said O'Connor). Spain finished third. Denmark mirrored the Australians' control in their semi-final, with France and Austria also qualifying.

Where to now for the Irish? "It's a disaster, but you come back from them," opined Maxwell. Not the idle words they might seem. After the fourth place in the Olympic final in 1996 for the four, Maxwell and O'Connor set themselves the aim of getting a medal in the Worlds each year. They won silver in 1996 and 1997, so the sequence has been disturbed - but hopefully just interrupted.

Sam Lynch, who was part of the four in the Olympic final in 1996, burned off the opposition in impressive fashion, leading from start to finish, to win the lightweight single sculls B final.

Drawn in lane one, the most difficult, he secured a ranking of seventh in the world in a way that suggested the young Limerick man was worth a place in the final.

Which was of course what he wanted, but failed to secure. "I am still disappointed, but I am looking at it (today's placing) as a good start," he said. He will probably continue in this discipline in the immediate future, despite the fact that it is not an Olympic event.

In the B final of the equivalent women's event, Ruth Doyle finished last, but the lightweight double scull of Eugene Coakley and John Armstrong qualified for the D final of their event, with second in their semi-final. Albert Maher finished fifth in the C final of the Open Single Scull.

Hosts Germany positioned themselves for a record medal haul at the world rowing championships yesterday, qualifying three more boats to get a total of 17 crews through to the weekend finals.

Battling the Germans for the lion's share of the medals will be the United States with boats in 14 of the 24 finals, followed by Australia and Italy with 12 each and Britain with 11.