On the Malta lake in Poznan, Poland today Ireland’s Sinéad Jennings won silver in the non-Olympic lightweight women’s single sculls (LW1x) final in a closely contested affair.
Derry’s Orlagh Duddy just missed out on the medals in the same final, finishing fourth.
After a fifth place finish in their repechage earlier on, the Beijing bound men’s heavyweight four (M4-) will line up in tomorrow’s ‘B’ final for places seven to twelve at this regatta.
Jennings rowed impressively in the final, leading off the start right up until the last 200metres, when the Canadian sculler inside of the Donegal woman made a decisive challenge that saw her take gold from Jennings on the line, by just over half a second.
Duddy started slowly and at the 500metre mark was lying sixth. By the halfway point she had pushed into fifth. Duddy continued the charge and occupied fourth with 500metres to go but the Austrian sculler ahead of her had done enough to hang onto bronze as they crossed the line.
Afterwards Jennings spoke of the tough racing conditions today, and that frantic finish:
'I would normally have quite a good sprint for the finish and I just really couldn’t get my rhythm in the last 500metres, then when the Canadian started coming back to me I found it really difficult to respond. I don’t know if that was because I just did too much earlier on in the race or that was the conditions.'
While Jennings acknowledged how good it was to be back in the medals in this boat, she pointed what will drive her challenge for this title at the non-Olympic world championships next month.
'It’s really nice to be back on the podium, hopefully next time it’ll be in the middle! It’s a real motivator now, maybe if I’d won that I would have slacked off a little so it could be the best thing for me,' concluded Jennings.
In the Olympic boats the men’s heavyweight four (M4-) of James Wall, Alan Martin, Cormac Folan and Sean O’Neill finished fifth in their repechage Saturday afternoon.
Only the top two boats across the line; New Zealand and the Czech Republic won an ‘A’ final place.
The Irish quartet will now line race in the ‘B’ final tomorrow morning for places seven to twelve at this the last regatta, before the Olympic regatta in Beijing.
A strong tailwind gusting down the course on the Malta lake made racing conditions for the crews hard to handle, with the water particularly choppy and rough.
The Irish heavy four were always going to be up against it with world champions New Zealand, the higher ranked Czech four who were silver medalists at the opening World Cup, and the Belarus quartet to contend with. They will be disappointed however not to have edged out the second string British four who raced well to take third.
The Irish foursome will race alongside the second British four, Belarus, Italy, Argentina and Egypt in Sunday’s B final (9am Irish time), hoping for a finish in the top half of the field.
