The Irish men’s lightweight four of Paul Griffin, Richard Archibald, Gearoid Towey and Eugene Coakley booked a place in Sunday's final of the opening rowing World Cup in Munich by finishing second in their semi-final.
The heavyweight men’s four of Alan Martin, Cormac Folan, Sean O'Neill and James Wall missed out on a place in their final with a fourth place finish in their semi-final; only the top three made the final.
With the significant headwind that had been blowing across the course for the past few days at its strongest, the organisers took the decision to seed crews for Saturday's races.
This gave the heat winners and top crews the more favourable lanes, which offered some shelter on the stand side of the course, over the last quarter of each of the races.
The Irish quartet; in lane five of six on the stand side followed leaders Germany - on their home course - to the halfway mark ahead of Denmark, Italy, Serbia and the second-string Chinese crew.
Despite a determined push from the Serbians over the second 1000 metres, which saw them move from fifth to a close third, the Irish maintained their second place to book a starting berth in Sunday's A final.
Afterwards Eugene Coakley said: 'We made hard work of it, but we’re happy we’re in the A final tomorrow afternoon. It was good to get the opportunity to test ourselves against the other non qualified crews (for the Olympics).
'We have a few technical things we’re going to look at as to why the Serbians came close at the end, and hopefully be better tomorrow.'
A top three finish was necessary for an A final place for the heavyweight four of Alan Martin, Cormac Folan, Sean O’Neill and James Wall, but the Irish quartet missed out crossing the line in fourth to progress to Sunday's B final, which will decide places seven to twelve at this regatta.
This Irish boat is assured of a place at the Beijing Games - with crew yet to be decided - but the quartet were unhappy how they fared in this semi-final.
'We didn’t have a good race today; we didn’t play to our strengths and we didn’t have a good race overall. We’re going to go out and try and put a good performance together tomorrow in the B final,' said Cormac Folan afterwards.
The Irish men’s lightweight double of Cathal Moynihan and Richard Coakley, and the men’s heavyweight pair of Sean Casey and Jonno Devlin made the best of their final races at this regatta winning their minor finals, finishing 25th and 19th respectively.
Heavyweight single sculler Sean Jacob did not perform close to his best at this regatta coming in sixth in his D final; an overall placing of 24th.
The lightweight women’s double of Niamh NiCheilleachair and Orlagh Duddy did not find form in Munich either taking sixth in the C final; a placing of 18th overall.
The women’s heavyweight double finished their first regatta at this level together in 20th place overall coming in behind their only other competitor; the Danish double in their D final.
