Rowers Katie O'Brien and Tiarnán O'Donnell are into the repechage of the PR2 mixed double sculls after their weather-delayed heat in Vaires-sur-Marnes.
The Irish crew required a top-two finish in their heat to qualify automatically for Sunday’s final, but will have a second bite of the cherry in tomorrow’s repechage (9.50am Irish time) after a fourth-place finish where China and Israel claimed the top two spots.
Originally due to race at 10.50am local time, the race programme was halted for an hour and a half due to thunderstorms at the spectacular rowing venue 35km west of central Paris.
While light rain continued to fall, the threat of lightning had subsided and the Irish crew took their place in lane five of their heat, with a sizeable Irish contingent in the stand making their presence felt.
It was the Chinese who controlled it from the off, with Israel their closest challengers. With 500m gone, the Irish boat tailed the leaders by more than eight seconds in fourth place.
With Turkey struggling at the rear, O’Brien, celebrating her 28th birthday, and O’Donnell tried to chase down Ukraine, and reduced the deficit to third by a second, with world silver medallists China and Israel in an unassailable lead.
Perhaps with an eye to the repechage, the Irish pair eased their stroke rate in the final 500m, finishing almost a minute down on China, who availed of the tailwind to win the heat in a Paralympic Games record of 8:03.70.
Israel, three and a half seconds down, also advanced to the A final, with Ukraine third and Ireland crossing the line in 9.03.33.
O’Brien, who has spina bifida, qualified the boat with Steven McGowan at last year’s World Championships, but O’Donnell was rewarded for his form over the last 12 months having come to the sport late from wheelchair basketball.
Their repechage takes place at 9.50am tomorrow morning, where Ireland will be up against France, Netherlands, as well as Turkey and Ukraine from their own heat.
The top two will advance to the A final, with the other three teams moving to the B final.
O'Donnell stressed the plan is to analyse the performance before quickly turning attention to their next outing.
"I think we just go back, see what we did positively," he said. "We know the things we need to work. We just have to apply that and have confidence in what we have done in training and reproduce in a race.
"If we get to that last 500 metres and we're in the mix, we have just got to back ourselves and empty the tank."
O'Brien said attention turned to the repechage shortly after halfway with China and Israel pulling clear.
"I had a good look around and took note of where the other boats were and around the 800m (to go) mark we kind of dropped off a little bit," she said.
"We definitely have a few changes to make for tomorrow now. Once we got to the 1400m mark and saw the other crews were ahead we said let’s just prioritise tomorrow and prioritise recovery."
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