On a terrific morning for Ireland at the Olympic regatta, Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy were commanding winners of their semi-final in the lightweight double sculls, while Ross Corrigan and Nathan Timoney became the first Irish crew to reach the final of the heavyweight pair.
Mags Cremen and Aoife Casey also reached the final of women’s lightweight double scull, which means Ireland will have four boats in Olympic finals for the first time.
O’Donovan and McCarthy were in front before halfway and utterly controlled the second half of the race. The Swiss crew, who had finished fractionally in front of the Irish pair in a World Cup race earlier this year, were more than a boat length behind in second.
It was a statement performance from the defending Olympic champions. The first half of their year was disrupted by illness to McCarthy, who had very little training done when they were beaten in a World Cup race in Lucerne. All of that is long behind them now and they looked incredibly strong on the water on Wednesday morning.
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In the men’s pair semi-final, Ross Corrigan and Nathan Timoney produced a gutsy performance to qualify for the final in third place. The Irish crew held off the persistent challenge of the New Zealand pair, both of whom had won gold medals in Tokyo as part of the New Zealand eight. Corrigan and Timoney are the first Irish heavyweight pair to compete at the Olympics since 1980, and just the second ever.
The Fermanagh duo went hard at the start and were in front at the 500 metre marker. By halfway, though, they had slipped to second and with 500 metres to go they were down to third, less than two seconds clear of New Zealand. But Corrigan and McCarthy increased their stroke rate to 44 strokes a minute in the sprint for the line and New Zealand failed to close them down.
Cremen and Casey were terrific in the semi-final of the women’s lightweight pair as well, beating off the French crew in the final 200 metres and qualifying for the final in third place. It was clear from early in the race that the qualifying places would lie between four boats, and Ireland were in fourth after 1,000 metres and 1,500 metres.
France and Greece were the boats just ahead of them and with a huge home crowd roaring them home it looked like a tall order. But in the final sprint France cracked and the Irish crew were stronger. At the line Cremen and Casey were 3.5 seconds ahead of the French crew.
In the women’s pair, however, Aifric Keogh and Fiona Murtagh could not find anything and trailed in last in their semi-final. Keogh and Murtagh had both been bronze medallists as part of the women’s four in Tokyo and had finished on the podium at every World Cup event this season, but had not enough to challenge on this occasion.
More to follow...
