Jacob overcomes slow start and lay-off

ROWING:SEÁN JACOB shook off the rust of over 50 days without competition yesterday to beat American opponent Mike Sivigny by one-and-a- half lengths to move into today's quarter-finals of the Diamond Sculls at Henley Royal Regatta.

A headwind made for a slow race, and the big Dubliner said he had made mistakes and would need to improve on the performance if he were to realise his objective of winning this class.

"It went okay for me. I was slow to start," he said. "In the middle, I came down at 30 strokes a minute and moved away from him quite easily. He came back a bit at the end, but I had enough of a margin not to be wasting my energy. It's a long course out there and the conditions were quite bad."

Jacob should progress today, and his next big challenge may lie in tomorrow's semi-final, where 20-year-old Nathaniel Reilly-O'Donnell looks set to be his opponent. Reilly-O'Donnell, who has represented Britain at junior and under-23 level, knocked out seeded American Patrick O'Hea in yesterday's first round.

Ireland will have four crews in action in the highest-ranked, Open events today. Jacob's sister Fran takes on fellow Irishwoman Caroline Ryan in the Princess Royal, while Herbie Griffin and Diarmaid Mac Colgain will compete in the Double Sculls. The two had what Mac Colgain called a "quite comfortable" win yesterday.

Commercial's young crew had a sparkling victory in the Wyfold Cup for club fours. They saw off seeded crew Grosvenor with some elan. "It was awesome," said coach Gerry Cantan. "And I don't say that very often."

The two other Irish crews in action yesterday made their exit.

Belfast were always underdogs against Hamburg in the Thames Cup for club eights, and the seeded German crew won by three lengths. Cork were also beaten well by Evesham in the Wyfold.

Commercial's good form may augur well for their senior eight, which will face seven other crews in this top event in the National Championships, which start this day week. Trinity and Belfast will hope to bounce back from their defeats in Henley, while NUIG and UCD, neither of whom travelled, will also be contenders.

The other three crews are composites - but none contain St Michael's, a key part of last year's winning composite.

There are six women's eights entered in a championships which has an extraordinary 45 crews in the men's intermediate single scull.

The National Championships for juniors starts today at the National Rowing Centre. Here there are 34 junior men's single scullers entered, and the final will be the last event of the regatta on Sunday evening.

Peter Chambers of Bann will be expected to be in or near the gold medal spot, but his brother Richard has just been named in the British team for Beijing, and Peter could follow him into that system. However, hopes that Peter will stay in the Irish system got a boost this week - from Richard.

"My brother is a keen rower and he currently rows for Ireland at a junior level. Maybe we will end up competing against each other," he told worldrowing.com this week.

HENLEY ROYAL REGATTA -Day Two (Irish interest): Double Sculls (Open): H Griffin, D Mac Colgain bt KT Kolimechkov, EA Boileau 3½l, 8:02. Diamond Sculls (Single, Open): S Jacob bt M Sivigny 1½l, 8:58. Thames Cup (Eights, Club): Allemannia RC, Hamburg bt Belfast RC 3l, 6:54. Wyfold Cup (Fours, Club): Evesham bt Cork easily, 7:42; Commercial bt Grosvenor RC 2l, 7:15.

Today's Programme (Irish interest) 8.45am - Double Scull: GP Winkler, DY Simkin v H Griffin, D Mac Colgain, 9.20am - Diamond Sculls: S Jacob v WPJ Hoodless, 10.20am - Princess Royal: C Ryan v F Jacob, 11.10am - Wyfold: Molesey A v Commercial.