ROWING: SKIBBEREEN GAVE the National Rowing Championships the stirring race they needed as the evening sun graced the National Rowing Centre in Cork yesterday.
The men’s quadruple of Richard Coakley, Gearóid Murphy, Mark O’Donovan and Justin Ryan swapped the lead for over 1,000 metres of the course with an experienced composite featuring Sam Lynch and Seán Jacob before charging past them in the final 200 metres to win by .4 of a second.
The win brought Skibbereen’s total for these “small boat” championships to an extraordinary 10 of the 24 titles on offer.
Peeling off the small boats and placing their end of season in September had proved a qualified success at best. James Wall, who was a late substitution in the NUIG quadruple which was not competitive on the day, put it succinctly: it was odd to be competing for a national title when “they are selling Christmas decorations in Dunnes”.
While the point was valid, some of the top athletes in the country blossomed in the wonderful, calm, conditions. Ireland’s top heavyweight, Jacob took the senior singles title on Saturday – leaving Coakley in his wake – and teamed up with Cormac Folan to take the senior pairs title.
The senior women’s pair title went to Elaine Fitzgerald and Claire Ludlow of Neptune, ending a wonderful year for them of victories at home and at Women’s Henley – and proving a fitting end to their careers. Fitzgerald (31) and Ludlow (35) retired from rowing yesterday.
It was a good weekend for the Jacobs, as Siobhán Jacob teamed up with Sanita Puspure to win the senior women’s double in a good race in which Offaly’s Éimear and Joanne Moran provided the toughest opposition, with Lisa Dilleen and Siobhán McCrohan pushed into third.
Puspure, a Swords-based Latvian who may finally land her Irish passport as early as next spring, had a fine championships. She won the senior single and teamed up with Dilleen, Monika Dukarska and Alice O’Sullivan (the winner of the novice single) to take the senior quadruple crown. All four are natural heavyweights and all four look set to be part of the Ireland’s high-performance programme next year.
Also a natural heavyweight is 6ft 4in Turlough Hughes, who won the junior single scull. The Mayo man finished 10th at the World Championships in this discipline but Skibbereen lightweight Shane O’Driscoll pushed him yesterday, leading until the third quarter, and coming in just two seconds down on Hughes.
There were some great stories at lower level – a breakthrough win for Presentation College in the junior 18 pair, the modest John Keohane admitting after winning the intermediate single scull that given his build he is “a good club athlete” – but really the story of these championships was about the red and white of Skibbereen.
When Christine Fitzgerald won the junior single scull in the morning session she was taking her fifth national title of the year – she had been part of the winning Skibbereen quadruple and pair, and in the July “big boat” event she had won in the senior and junior fours.
A club celebrating 40 years by building one of the biggest boathouses in the country has now amassed 123 titles.
