Olympics - Rowing: The Irish heavyweight four of Cormac Folan, Sean Casey, Jonathon Devlin and Sean O'Neill defied the odds to qualify straight to the semi-finals with an excellent performance in this morning's heats.
Rowing together for the first time in top class competition, the crew had been expected to struggle in a fiercely contested heat containing Australia, Germany and France.
With only the top three progressing straight to the semis and the losers heading for the repachage, it was anticipated the Irish would lose out.
Instead, it was the French who must row again on Monday with Ireland claiming third behind winners Australia and Germany.
And encouragingly, the Irish crew coped well in the fastest of the three heats raising genuine hopes of an unlikely place in next weekend's final.
Earlier in the day, single-sculler Alan Campbell from Coleraine in Co Derry who is rowing for the British team opened with a victory. Campbell suffered no ill-effects from recent knee surgery as he booked a quarter-final berth.
The 25-year-old had to have an infection cut out of his leg in June and he missed three weeks of training in the build-up to the Beijing Games.
"I am more than pleased with it. That was my first 2K since the injury. Two months ago I was in hospital. Now I feel there is more to come in this regatta," he said.
"Every race we are going to step it up a little bit more and a little bit more. Fingers crossed, toes crossed, everything crossed that we can have a nice clean run through to the semi-finals now."
Rowing Men's four Heats Summary
Heat 1: 1 Gr Britain 6:00.59 (Q), 2 Italy 6:02.84 (Q), 3 United States 6:03.96 (Q), 4 China 6:09.64 (Q), 5 Belarus 6:12.63 (Q)
Heat 2: 1 Netherlands 6:00.50 (Q), 2 New Zealand 6:00.73 (Q), 3 Slovenia 6:03.78 (Q), 4 Czech Republic 6:10.36 (Q)
Heat 3: 1 Australia 6:00.40 (Q), 2 Germany 6:00.95 (Q), 3 Ireland6:02.85 (Q), 4 France 6:05.00 (Q)