Sanita Puspure wins European gold as Ireland's rowers pocket four medals

The Ballincollig rower made it back-to-back European golds, to add to her back-to-back world titles

Sun, 11 Oct, 2020 - 14:34

Stephen Barry

Sanita Puspure blew away her rivals to retain her Women's Single Sculls title at the European Rowing Championships, as Ireland returned one gold and three bronze medals.

The Ballincollig rower made it back-to-back European golds, to add to her back-to-back world titles, emphasising her dominance over her rival crews.

Purpure had 2.5 seconds to spare over 2016 champion Magdalena Lobnig, from Austria, who led from the start but was overhauled after 500 metres of the 2km course at Poznan, Poland.

“It was very fast,” said Purpure, who clocked 7:36.04. “I just kept my head down and focused on my race. I executed it the best I could, but those girls are fast!”

Fintan McCarthy, of Skibbereen, took the first of the bronze medals on Sunday morning in the Lightweight Men's Single Sculls.

The 23-year-old burst out of the blocks to lead through the first three-quarters of the race.

However, in a dramatic finale, Norwegian sculler Kristoffer Brun completed his move through the field, from fifth to first, to take gold, pushed all the way by Italy's Niels Torre. McCarthy, overtaken 100m from the line for silver, had emptied the tank and finished three seconds behind in third.

“I am disappointed not to win, but it was still a good race,” said McCarthy. “I’ve been working really hard on my start which is better right now.”

Another bronze was to follow in the Olympic-category Men's Double Sculls from Daire Lynch and Ronan Byrne.

Corkman Byrne had partnered Philip Doyle to world silver last year but with Doyle returning to his work as a doctor since the Covid-19 pandemic, this was a landmark result for a feldgling partnership with Clonmel-native Lynch.

“This is huge. We’re a new crew, and we did well at Irish trials,” said Byrne. “We won at U23s, and to know at even a step up at the senior level we can podium is huge.”

Having hit the halfway mark in fifth, the pair overtook the Polish and Romanian crews before pushing Switzerland for silver, coming up half-a-second short of the 2018 world silver medallists in a race won by the Netherlands.

Minutes later the Women's Four, of Aifric Keogh, Eimear Lambe, Aileen Crowley, and Fiona Murtagh, made it three bronze medals for Ireland.

In another race dominated by the Netherlands, the Irish crew were their closest challengers, albeit at some distance, for the first 1,500m. However, they were pipped on the sprint to the line by Italy for second, although they were well clear of fourth-placed Denmark, who won bronze at the worlds last year.

“This is our first A final as a crew, our first big event as a crew,” said Keogh.

“We knew there were some big names in this event. We had some steering difficulties off the start, but we managed to get it back together.”

The Women's Pair of Tara Hanlon and Emily Hegarty finished fifth in their A final, while Lydia Heaphy won her Lightweight Women's Single Sculls B final for an overall rank of seventh, and Margaret Cremen and Aoife Casey came in second in their Lightweight Women's Double Sculls B final for eighth overall.

“Winning four medals, one gold and three bronze, is a brilliant accomplishment for Irish Rowing this weekend. Out of our seven crews entered, five reached the A final in their category, and two achieved excellent results in the B finals,” said Rowing Ireland’s High-Performance Director, Antonio Maurogiovanni.

“These results have continued our success this year at U23 and Junior European Championships. We now have nine medals from three competitions at three different levels.

“We are not considered the underdog anymore, and we all need to do better and push the bar higher to keep our current level of international competitiveness.”