Commercial and UCD convincing winners on second day of Henley Royal Regatta

Commercial and UCD have been great rivals in Irish rowing this season, and both had convincing wins on the second day of Henley Royal Regatta.

Commercial’s eight outclassed City of Oxford in the Thames Cup. They face more serious rivals on Friday in an eight from Lyon in France.

UCD’s four had a surprisingly facile win in the Visitors’ Cup. David O’Malley, Shane Mulvaney, Andrew Goff and Shane O’Connell are unbeaten in this boat since they won the Irish Championships last year, and they quickly moved into a clearwater lead over Leander Club. On Friday UCD take on a seeded German crew, a composite of Crefelder and RCG Dusseldorf.

Enniskillen made a surprise exit from the Fawley Cup for junior men’s quadruples. Christiana Roklub of Norway edged ahead of the seeded Irish crew and powered away to a lead of just under a length. Enniskillen came back at them and lost by just one-third of a length.

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Orla Hayes was beaten in the open event for single sculls, the Princess Royal, while Nathan Hull of Queen’s University, Belfast, teamed up with Olly Dix of Leander to win their first round of the Double Sculls.

Men’s pairs

Shane O’Driscoll and Mark O’Donovan will race in the Silver Goblets, the top event for men’s pairs, on Friday. The two race in a Skibbereen/Cork composite crew which is one of nine men’s senior eights – including Commercial and UCD – set for next weekend’s Irish Championships. It will be the biggest ever domestic event in Ireland with 100 crews.

Along with the senior team for the World Cup, the Ireland performance director Antonio Maurogiovanni has named two male crews for the World Under-23 Championships, with two women’s crew also “pre-selected” for the event in three weeks’ time in Florida.

The World Junior Championship crews have been confirmed: a junior men’s coxed four and the double of Molly Curry and Rhiannon O’Donoghue. Four junior women’s crews and one junior men’s crew have been selected for the Coupe de la Jeunesse in Italy in early August.