THE Olympic Regatta will be the next competitive race for the Irish coxless four, who guaranteed their starting place in Gainsville by winning their lightweight final in Lucerne yesterday. The sculler Mary Hussey narrowly missed qualification by two hundredths of a second.

With only the first two crews qualifying from six finalists, the fours race was as much a test of nerve as a matter of speed.

Expectation also added to the pressure and after racing well at Duisberg, the Irish crew were keen to set themselves up as a boat to be reckoned with in the Olympics.

In the event, it was the tense conditions rather than temperatures of over 30 degrees that caused the Irish four of Neville Maxwell, Tony O'Connor, Sam Lynch and Derek Holland to overboil slightly.

"The first 20 strokes were not too good, we got into a reasonable rhythm as we went on, but it was not as good as we have raced before," Sam Lynch summed up afterwards.

In spite of early wobbles, the four raced a fast 500 metres and on the first split timing were more than a second and a half up on second placed France. That gap was doubled by the halfway mark, the Irish rating a couple of pips below their norm at 36 strokes a minute, but by the finish the race for the last Olympic place between France and a resurgent Portugal had caught up with the lead. The final margin was 0.24 of a second, two feet, on the line.

For Lynch though, the result was more important than the style in which it was achieved. "We hit some washes early on and at 1,250 metres we suddenly met a headwind which broke some of the other crews' rhythm. But there was an awful lot of pressure because everything was at stake - I don't think Atlanta will be as bad. It was good enough, though, and it says something if you don't row 100 per cent and still win."

But the time Derek Holland, suffering from over-hydration, called to hold down the rate, the win had been long since assured, said stroke Neville Maxwell. "Really, we knew we had won from the first stroke, but it was not as comfortable as it might have been. We can go a hell of a lot faster - the second half was not as good as it has been and there was not the consistency or flow in the middle of the course - but the next three of four weeks should see us take another four of five seconds off today's time."

Earlier, the pressure had been on Mary Hussey. Crew changes in the Canadian and Dutch camps had created an extra qualifying place in the women's sculls and in a tight final line-up, Hussey needed to finish third or better. The build-up had been promising with a personal best to add to her B final win last weekend and then she followed up with a first place in Friday's heat, a race in which she beat the Dutch sculler, Anita Neiland, the Greek Antonio Svaier and Pieret Jamnes from Estonia.

However, a tactical heat is a notoriously bad guide to performance in the final. Hussey led for the first 500 metres from Friday's other heat winner Celine Garcia of France. Garcia moved ahead at the halfway mark and at the start of the last 500 metres Hussey was a length down with the Lithuanian Brute Sakickiene about to race through. As the line neared, Hussey was still in a qualifying position when the German-based Greek, Svaier, made a final push.

"I could see her coming and tried to respond but I could feel that I had nothing in my legs and when I pushed nothing happened," Hussey said later.

Svaier stole it on the line by a matter of a foot - two hundredths of a second. Hussey herself had raced another personal best time.

"It was down to who had the oars in the water on the line. I don't think I really settled, maybe I was just aware of what was going on. Yes, I am disappointed not to be going to the Olympics, but I am not disappointed with the way I raced - there's not a whole lot more I could have done."