Unsung Heavyweights get the first punch in

THIS wasn’t in the script. Ireland’s lightweight rowers were supposed to sail through to the Olympic semi-finals on Thursday with their heavier brethren set for the roundabout repechage route.

Instead Cormac Folan, Sean O’Neill, Sean Casey and Jonno Devlin, competing together for the first time on Saturday, can put up the feet for a few days while such seasoned campaigners as Gearoid Towey, Richard Archibald, Cathal Moynihan and Paul Griffin are out again tomorrow. Despite their fourth place finish behind Germany, France and Poland, Towey was in upbeat mood.

“It wasn’t that bad,” he insisted. “We had a good row, I thought, so we just have to keep going with that. That race was over so fast it was just like push after push.”