ROWING:IRELAND HAD a remarkable result on the first day of the World Cup in Bled in Slovenia yesterday, as 19-year-old Claire Lambe and Siobhán McCrohan (23), competing together for the first time in the lightweight double sculls, won their heat and qualified directly for today's semi-finals.

In a race replete with experienced athletes, the young double would have been good odds to even figure in the top three, but they got out in front early and held off hard-challenging Italy well.

Poland’s Magdalena Kemnitz and Agnieszka Renc, the world silver medallists, could only take third, and had to find their way to the semi-finals through last evening’s repechages.

The result is the strongest indication yet that the new Irish regime is on the right tracks. However, performance director Martin McElroy said it was just one win and nobody was getting ahead of themselves: “It’s a start. I wouldn’t make any more of it than that at the moment,” he said.

“They’ve done okay, they’ve won the race, you can’t do much better than that. It’s got them to a semi-final; now they’ve got to go out and do it again.”

Ireland’s day had started well, with Cathal Moynihan qualifying directly for the semi-finals of the lightweight men’s single scull by taking second in his heat, splitting Frenchmen Maxime Goisset and Fabien Dufour, who also qualified.

Before the regatta, McElroy had stressed this was going to be a big step up for his inexperienced team, and four of the six crews had to battle it out in last evening’s repechages, with none making it through to A/B semi-finals and a place in the top 12 in their class.

In the repechages of the men’s lightweight double sculls, Mark O’Donovan and Michael Maher put up a good battle in the latter part of their race, passing China One and threatening the hold of the Czech Republic in third place. Niall Kelly and Justin Ryan were just over six seconds off qualification in their repechage, the fastest of the day.

“They’ve learned something about how fast they can go as well as how fast they have to go,” said McElroy.

In the Adaptive events, Karol Doherty qualified for the semi-finals of the arms and shoulders single scull by placing third in his heat. The legs, trunks and arms mixed coxed four finished second in their repechage last night and qualified for the A Final.

Alan Campbell won both his heat and quarter-final of the men’s single scull.