"A spectacular 30 minutes for Irish rowing," was how Tom Fennessey, the president of the Irish Amateur Rowing Union, summed it up, and it would be hard to argue with him after Sam Lynch and Sinead Jennings won silver and bronze in quick succession at the World Championships for non-Olympic events at Zagreb in Croatia.

In the lightweight single sculls Limerick man Lynch always knew he was going to have a hard battle with Michal Vabrousek of the Czech Republic, last year's silver medallist, and so it proved. The two of them fought for the gold, with the rest well behind.

Vabrousek was less than a second ahead of Lynch at the 500 and 1,000-metre marks. Lynch pushed at halfway only to see Vabrousek stretch his lead by the 1,500-metre mark.

"I thought `well that plan didn't work'," said Lynch. But the race for the gold was between them. "I wasn't going to settle for silver, so I just closed my eyes, well I looked down the lane, and pulled and pulled." At the end he was only 0.7 of a second away from his rival.

Standing on a World Championship podium was a fitting end to a year which had had "a dodgy start" for the 24-year-old Irishman - and threatened to get worse at some points. Illness and poor form had seen him produce poor results at regattas in both Ghent and Duisberg, and, when he reached the final at the World Cup regatta in Munich, he blew his chance by stopping early on having mistakenly thought the race had been called back.

That low point also proved a turning point. "I wondered `is it all going pear shaped?'," explained Lynch. "But I sat down with Thor (coach Thor Nilsen) and he asked me `Do you like what you are doing?'. I said `I love it, I really love it'. And he said `Okay, we can work this out'."

From there he began the ascent to a gold at the World Cup regatta in Lucerne and a silver yesterday at Zagreb.

Jennings' bronze also completed an extraordinary year for her: the 23-year-old Donegal woman proved herself among the best in the world as a lightweight single sculler having only taking up sculling in September of last year. The former tri-athlete had only taken up rowing in 1999.

Yesterday she became the first Irishwoman to win a medal at this level. She modified her usual blazing start and rowed through the field to take third behind Laila Finnska-Bezerra of Finland and German Angelika Brand. These three have shared out the World Cup medals between them this year, but the presence of Lisa Schlenker of the United States was a threat to Jennings' medal hopes.

But Jennings, polite and shy off the course, is different on it. "I was determined the American wasn't going to get my medal," she said. Still thrilled afterwards she said she was delighted to win bronze. "Next year I will be back for more."

The men's and women's quadruple sculls both finished fifth in their B finals.

Women's coach Mick Desmond said the decision to send his crew had come too late and affected their performance at the championships.