A silver and a bronze medal won by Irish competitors at the World Cup regatta in Munich marked yesterday as a special day in Irish rowing. The quadruple scull from Commercial in Dublin came second in their final and single sculler Gearoid Towey from Fermoy in Cork third in his.
The quad, under the coaching of Mick Desmond, has certainly shown what can be done by Irish crews. Like all the Irish competitors at this regatta, the four Irishmen (Emmet O'Brien, Neal Byrne, Niall O'Toole and Donal McGuinness) wore the Irish singlet - but paid their own way.
Last year the quad coached by Desmond finished third, behind the Italians and Germans in the World Championships at Aiguebelette in France and in yesterday's regatta only the Germans - like the Irish with two changes in personnel - stood between them and gold.
The Germans set the early pace and had a two-second lead by 500 metres. They stretched this to three by half-way (1,000 metres) but the Irish pulled them back to two seconds at 1,500 metres, although the Germans eventually won by three seconds (six minutes and five seconds to the Irish time of 6.08). The British crew finished third in 6.09.
Towey, who is only 21, marked himself out as one of the top young sportsmen in the country by his performance in taking the bronze medal in the lightweight single sculls. The race was won by the much more experienced Karsten Nielsen from Denmark in seven minutes five seconds to Towey's 7.10.
Towey won the World Under23 championships in 1996, but illness badly affected his form in 1997. He moved to England and joined the Leander club to try to bring a change in his fortunes for this season. The move, and the coaching of Martin Kay, has certainly done the trick - before yesterday his season was already looking special, with wins in both lightweight and heavyweight events in the Ghent spring regatta and a victory in the British trials in February.
The other Irish competitors in Munich had mixed fortunes. Heavyweight single sculler Albert Maher of Neptune made the B final of his discipline but had to pull up with a tummy bug. Eighteen-year-old Owen Byrne from Commercial finished fourth in the B final of the lightweight single sculls, and Ruth Doyle had the same placing in the corresponding women's event. The Commercial quad, with Owen Byrne in for McGuinness, reached the B final of the heavyweight event, but did not compete because it clashed with the lightweight quad final.
The strong wind which whipped in from the east, agitating the exposed Blessington lake, leached much of the meaning from the Metropolitan regatta on Saturday. The organisers took a calculated gamble, postponing most of the finals, first for two hours and then over three, in the hope that the predicted calm would descend - the competition eventually ended at 8.30 p.m. However, the wind never lost its freshness but the competitors did, and some had to leave. A number of finals ended as row-overs (including the `blue riband' men's coxed fours, won by Neptune) and a few more did not take place.
Among the victims of the eventual pile-up of races was Commercial's Donal Hanrahan. He was a definite contender for a medal in the single sculls having won his heat, but, teamed with Neptune's Colm O'Rourke, he was also in the final of the double sculls. The two finals were run off within minutes of each other, with the double sculls first, and Hanrahan had to settle for second place in this event (behind the Netpune pair of Brendan Dolan and Derek Holland).
The single sculls final was won by Trinity's James Lupton, with Lady Victoria's John Armstrong surprisingly only managing third.
Mary Hussey won the women's single sculls with two of her teammates in the heavyweight Commercial quad, Vanessa Lawrenson and Debbie Stack, second and fourth respectively. However, the fourth member of that quad, 19year-old Susan O'Brien, ran into difficulty and did not finish.
