Irish rowers Sinead Lynch and Claire Lambe, and Cork brothers Gary and Paul O'Donovan will have to wait at least one more day to make their Rio debuts as the the second day of rowing at the Olympics has been postponed due to the wind whipping across the Lagoa.
The Olympic regatta got off to a testing start on Saturday, with athletes leaving the water complaining about being made to race in windy conditions.
Irish rower Sanita Puspure qualified through her heat yesterday in the testing conditions and explained the difficulty after the race.
Puspure told RTE Sport: “The waves just pushed me right into the lane next to me so I had to just tap it out.
“Otherwise we would crash or the wind could probably keep pushing me, I know it’s ridiculous.”
Britain's Katherine Grainger called it the worst Olympic rowing conditions she had faced, underlined by the Serbian men's pair capsizing in the Lagoa in the heat before.
The International Rowing Federation (FISA) warned worse weather was forecast in the coming days and its prediction proved accurate on Sunday morning.
An initial hour delay to the start was pinned on the weather creating issues with the Albano buoy system, which marks the race course.
Racing was subsequently put back a further hour, before it emanated at 10:17am local time - 13 minutes before the new scheduled start - that the competition was postponed due to the weather.
'All races cancelled for today' read the big screen at the Lagoa, but that sign was taken down before most spectators had seen it.
