Two Tricolours fluttered in the wind during the medal ceremonies for the lightweight pair and lightweight quadruple scull at the World Championships at St Catharines, Ontario, yesterday, but the green white and red flag of Italy held the gold medal positions in both cases, with Ireland having to be content with two sets of bronze.
The pair of Tony O'Connor (30) and Neville Maxwell (29), who have twice won silver at World Championships, went desperately close here to winning the gold medal they covet. Rowing in lane four, they swept clear of the field in the first 200 metres and, moving sweetly despite the stiff wind, they seemed set for victory until the final 300 metres.
Italy and Chile, who had been fighting their own battle in lanes three and two, then began to eat into the Irish lead, being helped more than the Irish by the shelter from the wind offered by the grandstands. The Italians passed the Irish just before the finish, with the Chileans, bronze medallists last year, edging O'Connor and Maxwell out of silver on the very line - the margin being .13 of a second.
The quadruple scull also lost their chance of silver in the final few hundred metres, in this case to Germany. There was never much doubt that Italy, who led from start to finish, would win the gold, but the Irish held off the Germans bravely for most of the 2,000 metres.
The Irish crew's performance in reaching the podium was satisfying for a quartet with three members in their early 20s (stroke Neal Byrne is 23, Gearoid Towey 22 and James Lindsay-Fynn 23, while Noel Monahan is 29). If yesterday yielded medals, Saturday was a disappointing day for the Irish on two counts: Sam Lynch missed out on a medal in the men's lightweight single scull, finishing fourth in the A final, and the lightweight double of Niall O'Toole and Derek Holland, needing to take any place from one to five in the B final to secure an Olympic place for the boat, finished sixth.
Lynch's failure seemed far from devastating. The 23-year-old Limerickman was in some distress as he crossed the line having lost his third position to the fast-finishing Hungarian Gergeli Kokas, with the experienced Karsten Nielsen of Denmark and Michal Vabrousek of Czech Republic taking gold and silver, but his youth and rate of improvement are encouraging.
The lightweight double's failure to qualify means that Ireland has no boats guaranteed Olympic places and their oarsmen will have to go the tough route of fighting for the last few places available through qualifying regattas next year.
O'Toole was gutted afterwards, conscious that many months of sacrifice for himself and his family trying to win a place at the Olympics had effectively been for nothing. "I've had such a rough year," said the 29-year-old Commercial man, "so much effort to get to this stage."
Among the outstanding performances on Saturday were the victories of New Zealander Rob Waddell, who set a new world record in the single sculls final, and the British four, built around fourtime Olympic gold medallist Steven Redgrave. Slovenia's Luka Spik and Iztok Cop also performed outstandingly, setting a new world record in the men's double scull A final.
But if the word "heroic" is sometimes overused in sport it is sometimes also apt. Emma Robinson and Theresa Luke won gold in the women's pair on Saturday. Robinson was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in February and had surgery to remove the thyroid in March. Four month's ago the Canadian could not train with her team-mates because the treatment may have given off radiation. After her gold win she was asked whether it had been a great year for her: "It sure has!" she answered.
