Lightweight four make semi-finals

ROWING: Experience counts. Three Ireland crews competed in yesterday's repechages at the World Rowing Championships in Seville, but the only one which will join the already-qualified Sam Lynch and Tony O'Connor and Gearóid Towey in the A/B semi-finals is the lightweight four which competed in two World Cup regattas this year.

Needing to finish in the top two in their race, the lightweight four led all the way to win, beating Britain into second and Portugal into third. They move into tomorrow's semi-finals targeting a top-three spot and a place in the A finals, but knowing that even a place in the top five in Sunday's B final would place them in the world's top 11, which will be the standard for automatic Olympic qualification at next year's World Championships.

For both the men's and women's lightweight double sculls, yesterday held little joy. Sinead Jennings and Heather Boyle needed to finish in the top three in their semi-final to gain an A/B semi-final place but were never contenders. They finished last of five in a race won by Canada, with the USA and Romania filling the other qualification spots.

The Irish crew competed in Duisburg regatta early in the season and did well, but could only manage 10th at their only World Cup regatta, in Lucerne, as their season was marred by Jennings' neck problems.

The men's lightweight double of Eugene Coakley and Neal Byrne were formed after national trials in July in which they finished first and second respectively and had their only competitive outing before this championships at the Munich World Cup regatta, where they finished eighth, second in the B final.

It was asking a lot of a crew with so little experience together to make the grade at such a high level, and they were last of four in a repechage won by Britain's Tim Male and Tom Kay. The Netherlands filled the other A/B semi-final qualification spot and Belgium were third. The two Ireland doubles will compete in the C/D semi-finals early tomorrow morning. The lightweight men's four have a later slot after gaining a place in the A/B semi-finals.

"The idea is to make the top three in the semi-final and sneak through to the A final," said Neil Casey. "That would be good, but it is going to be tough.

"Today was tough, too," he added, explaining Britain and Portugal had kept the pressure on. "I suppose it is always going to be like that in a three-boat race where one is going to miss out."

This is a young crew, but an ambitious one which already has two B final wins in Lucerne and Munich to their credit. Casey is only 21, but won a silver medal in the world under-23 championships last year in a four which also included the bowman in this crew, Paul Griffin.

Derek Holland, at 28, is the oldest man in the boat and can look back to the 1996 Olympics, when he was part of the lightweight four which just missed out on a bronze medal, and Richard Archibald at 24 has bronze medals in world under-23 championships and Commonwealth Games.

Before they make their bid for an A final place, Sam Lynch has the same task in his semi-final at 10.07 a.m. this morning, and this should be the first Irish crew to make certain of at least the chance of a gold for Ireland.

DETAILS (Irish interest): Repechages Men Lightweight Coxless Four - Two to A/B semi-finals: Repechage One: 1, Ireland (P Griffin, R Archibald, N Casey, D Holland) 5:57.20; 2; Britain (B Webb, M Hunter, M Hennessy, J Warnock) 5:58.67, 3; Portugal 5:59.20.

Repechage Two: 1; France 5:54.96, 2; Yugoslavia 5:57.76.

Repechage Three: 1; Germany 5:54.95, 2; Poland 5:56.82.

Repechage Four: 1; Austria 5:56.18, 2; USA 5:56.29.

Lightweight Double Scull - Two to A/B Semi-Finals:

Repechage One: 1; Greece (N Skiathitis, V Polymeros) 6:19.13, 2; Japan (K Ura, D Takeda) 6:21.94.

Repechage Two: 1; Britain (T Male, T Kay) 6:21.69, 2; Netherlands (I Snijders, G Van der Linden) 6:21.95, 3; Belgium 6:22.14, 4; Ireland (E Coakley, N Byrne) 6:28.22.

Repechage Three: 1; Russia (D Moisseev, A Chevel) 6:22.43, 2; Spain (R Alvarez, J Zunzunegui) 6:24.12.

Repechage Four: 1; Denmark (M Rasmussen, R Hansen) 6:18.84, 2; Brazil (JC Sobral Jr Goncalves, T Gomes) 6:21.15.

Women: Lightweight Double Scull - Three to A/B Semi-Finals:

Repechage One: 1; Canada (F Milne, S McLaren) 7:03.30, 2; USA 7:05.06, 3; Romania 7:09.89, 4; Zimbabwe 7:14.04, 5; Ireland (H Boyle, S Jennings) 7:20.78.

Repechage Two: 1; Netherlands 7:01.68, 2; Denmark 7:06.10.

Repechage Three: 1 Poland 7:02.62, 2 France 7:07.95.