The Irish lightweight quadruple scull, which won silver at the first World Cup regatta in Munich, added a bronze at the second in Hazewinkel in Belgium yesterday. The all-Commercial crew of Niall O'Toole, Niall Byrne, Donal McGuinness and Emmet O'Brien were beaten into third place by Italy, who didn't compete at Munich, and Germany.
The Irish, who won their repechage, finished in five minutes 58 seconds, eight seconds behind the Italians but only three seconds off the Germans, and were disappointed not to have matched the second-placed crew. "We hit rough water, but came back well at the end," McGuinness said.
The standard of the regatta was higher than in Munich and other Irish results also reflected this. However, the women's lightweight quadruple scull were just one place off a medal in their A final, although the low entry here gave the Irish direct entry to the final.
The loss of the injured Tony O'Connor to the lightweight coxless four has clearly been severe, and they could only finish fifth in the B final. In the men's lightweight single scull Gearoid Towey was sixth in the A final, 11 seconds off the pace set by Michael Banninger of Switzerland in a fast race won in seven minutes and two seconds. John Armstrong finished second in the B final in the same event.
In the heavyweight sculls, Albert Maher's third place in the semi-finals placed him 18th of the 31 entries, which disappointed the Neptune man.
"I hope to go to Lucerne (the final leg of the World Cup) and acquit myself closer to may abilities," he said.
At Women's Henley the best Irish performances came at junior level. Both Offaly and King's Hospital reached the semi-final of the junior quadruple sculls - where unfortunately they faced each other. Offaly came out on top by two lengths, but were beaten by Wallingford in the final.
UCD also reached the semi-final in the College eights, but they were beaten by Villanova by 2 1/2 lengths. Trinity met a strong Brown University crew at the quarter-final stage of the Club eights and were beaten by two lengths, although they had the consolation of seeing Brown go on to win. Neptune lost out at the same stage to Thames.
World Cup Regatta (at Hazewinkel, Irish placings): MEN: Lightweight four, B Final - 3, Ireland (N Maxwell, B Dolan, D Holland, N Monahan). Lightweight Pair, B Final - 6, Ireland (A Coleman, J Lindsay-Fynn). Sculling - Lightweight, Quad, A Final - 3, Ireland (N Byrne, N O'Toole, E O'Brien, D McGuinness). Lightweight Double, Repechage - 5, Ireland (E Coakley, O Byrne). Single (G Towey, J Armstrong). Heavyweight, Single, Semi-final - 3, Ireland (A Maher). WOMEN: Lightweight Quad, A Final - 4, Ireland (A Phelan, H Dixon, M Terry, A Houlihan). Women's Henley (Irish placings): Club Eights: Quarter-final: Brown University bt Trinity 2l. College Eights: Quarter-final: Villanova bt UCD 21/2l; Thames bt Neptune 21/2l. College Fours: Quarter-final: University of London bt Trinity 21/2l. Quad Sculls, Junior: Semi-final: Offaly bt King's Hospital 2l. Final: Wallingford bt Offaly 2l.
