Rowing
A win, a second place and a boat through after a repechage. It may have been only heats and repechages on the first day of the World Cup regatta in Lucerne, but Ireland's team of three Olympic-class crews provided more evidence that the improvement under coach Harald Jahrling is no chimera.
The lightweight four, in a new combination and with long, powerful strokes, dominated their race and finished pulling away while keeping a low rate.
The women's lightweight double, who have struggled this season, won a battle with Britain for the second place that took them directly in to today's semi-finals. "It was nice to go through," said Heather Boyle with some relief.
Britain, surprisingly, did not make it through the repechages.
On a generally cold, squally day, the sun graced the heats of the men's four, but it brought no joy to the Ireland crew, who missed out by 0.11 seconds on automatic qualification.
In a very tough line-up, the Netherlands had the race sewn up with 250 metres to go, with Canada, Denmark and the Irish fighting for the other two places. Canada edged ahead and held second, but Ireland tore through the final 100 metres and thought they had caught Denmark.
The result was not announced in English, and strokeman Alan Martin had to shout to the bank to find out that they had not made it. It was particularly disappointing as they had covered the last quarter faster than any other crew.
Even with Seán Casey carrying an injury which left him on crutches as a precaution, Ireland were always likely to qualify through the evening repechages. They did so by finishing second to the Czech Republic.
Jahrling had one word to describe the morning's showing: "Nervous". The German has created this crew and stressed that they are an inexperienced unit who showed "very little concentration" and made "a handful of mistakes" in this test. He wants his crews to row with confidence and enjoy their races, he said.
The advice seems to have been taken on board in a big way by the lightweight four. "Harald wanted us to go out and row our own race, to have confidence. It worked out well," said Richard Archibald, who has been moved to the three seat from the bow, which is now occupied by Tim Harnedy.
The crew rowed a poor race tactically at the World Cup in Munich, where they expended too much energy before the final stages. Archibald says that under Jahrling's tutelage they are concentrating on building on their acknowledged good start rather than using it to devastate the field. The emphasis is on keeping a good rhythm through the 2,000 metres.
The Queen's University man echoed another of Jahrling's themes: each race is "a learning experience".
"The race we want to win is the World Championships," he said.
WORLD CUP REGATTA (in Lucerne, Irish interest) - Men, Four - Heat Two (Three to A/B Semi-Finals): 1 Netherlands 6:21.83, 2 Canada 6:22.83, 3 Denmark 6:23.73, 4 Ireland (C Folan, S Jacob, S Casey, A Martin) 6:23.84, 5 Switzerland 6:48.53. Repechage (Three to Semi-Finals): 1 Czech Republic 6:10.54, 2 Ireland 6:11.23, 3 Switzerland 6:13.87.
Lightweight Four - Heat One (Three to A/B Semi-Finals): 1 Ireland (T Harnedy, E Coakley, R Archibald, P Griffin) 6:25.69, 2 Poland One 6:28.29, 3 Britain 6:28.48.
Women, Lightweight Double Scull - Heat Four (First Two to A/B Semi-Finals): 1 Finland 7:18.65, 2 Ireland (N Ni Cheilleachair, H Boyle) 7:21.69, 3 Britain 7:22.27, 4 Brazil 7:41.00, 5 Korea 8:12.48.
