Rowing: Ireland's lightweight four will advance straight to the final of the last Olympic qualifying regatta after winning their heat in Poznan, Poland, this morning.
Paul Griffin, Richard Archibald, Gearoid Towey and Cathal Moynihan will be joined in Wednesday's final by the German quartet after they also impressed in winning their heat.
First and second in the final will qualify for the Beijing games. The 10 remaining teams must race tomorrow to decide the other four finalists.
After a fast start from the Spanish crew, the Irish four hit the front at the 1,750 metre mark and enjoyed a one-second advantage at the finish line.
"We had a talk about it before we went out - how we thought the race was going to pan out and that's exactly how it did work out," explained Towey afterwards..
"The only thing that was different was that we didn't expect them (the Spanish) to hang on for so long. Probably with 250 metres to go I don't think there was any doubt that we wouldn't go through them."
With the Germans recording a winning margin of over six seconds, Towey is well aware that Wednesday's final will present a huge challenge.
"Obviously Germany are the crew to beat for us here," he added. "Looking forward if we want to have any Olympic ambitions we know they're our targets so we're still going out to race them. We're not going out just to target qualification; we want to go and race them."
The Irish heavyweight pair of Sean Casey and Jonno Devlin and the lightweight men's double of brothers Eugene and Richard Coakley compete in the semi-finals tomorrow morning.
Both teams will be hoping for a top three finish to secure a place in their respective finals.