ROWING Round-up: Matthew Carroll and Vincent Ruane negotiated their way through a tricky repechage yesterday to make the semi-final of the men's pairs at the World Junior Championships in Brandenburg, Germany.
The Galway boys, who are a lightweight crew, rowed hard in the early stages and stayed in contention for the rest of the race to secure the third place behind Estonia and Argentina which took them into today's A/B semi-finals.
"I'm very pleased with the boys. It was good to see them come through what was quite a tough call," said Ireland assistant coach Debbie Fox.
The men's double of Paul O'Brien and Rory O'Connor had what Ireland team manager Mike Heskin called a "dream draw" in their repechage and took full advantage. With two crews to go through to the semis, and only Australia a real threat, O'Brien and O'Connor bossed the race and won in a good time of six minutes 45.37 seconds.
While the pair may have reached the limits of their abilities at the penultimate stage, O'Brien and O'Connor will be fully intent on making the leap into the world's top six today.
The Irish have avoided the crew everyone is talking about, the Slovenian duo of Jan Spik and Gasper Fistravec, but their semi-final draw includes Germany and New Zealand, who won their heats impressively on Wednesday.
Only two crews go through to the A Final, and the Czech Republic, who lost out by three-tenths of a second in their heat but won their repechage yesterday, will also have high hopes of upsetting the odds.
Fox says she feels the Germans and the Slovenians are "a cut above the rest", with New Zealand in a group a step below. As with all junior competitions a lot will depend on which crews hold their form when the heat comes on.
The top Ireland seniors have their sights set on the World Championships in Japan at the end of this month. Their training camp at St Moritz finishes this Thursday, but they go on to another training stint at the National Rowing Centre the following week. Decisions on injuries and the final line-up for Gifu may be left until this stage.
