No Sanita Puspure, but strong Irish rowing team returns to water for European Championships

Ireland's Fintan McCarthy and Paul O’Donovan on their way to finishing first to qualify for the A final and the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Picture: INPHO/Detlev Seyb

Ireland’s rowers return to international competition this weekend, when Italy hosts the European Championships on Lake Varese. With the Olympic regatta just three months away, the event will give crews their first chance this season to assess the likely competition in Tokyo.

But Ireland rowing fans will be denied the chance to see Sanita Puspure open her international account, after the world champion decided to stay at home to prepare for the World Cup regatta next month in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Her absence leaves to the door open for Austria’s Magdalena Lobnig to go head to head with Greece’s Anneta Kyridou for top honours in the women’s single sculls, with British sculler Vicky Thornley also looking for a podium finish.

Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy have retained the combination that won them the world title two years ago in the lightweight men’s double sculls and are favourites for gold.

Silver medalists Stefano Oppo and Pietro Ruta of Italy, gold medalists Fintan McCarthy and Paul O'Donovan of Ireland and bronze medalists Jonathan Rommelmann and Jason Osborne of Germany, from left pose on the podium of the Lightweight Men's Double Sculls final at the World Rowing Championships in Ottensheim in 2019. Picture: Matthias Schrader

Challenging them for the top spot this weekend will be the home favourites, Stefano Oppo and Pietro Ruta, who have finished second to Ireland at the last two world championships. Also in the top-class field will be the Germans, Jonathan Rommelmann and Jason Osborne, who won bronze in Austria and finished second to Italy at last year’s Europeans, in the absence of Ireland.

The selection of O’Donovan and McCarthy in the double means that Gary O’Donovan, who won Olympic silver with brother Paul in Rio, will be racing once again in the lightweight single, a non-Olympic boat class.

The Skibbereen sculler finished a disappointing 10th in the single in Linz and it will take a major turn of fortune to see him back in the double before Tokyo.

A strong hope for an Irish medal lies in the heavyweight men’s double which survives unchanged from the line-up which took world silver in Austria two years ago. Philip Doyle and Ronan Byrne came home less than a second behind China’s Liu Zhiyu and Zhang Liang, but Doyle had to miss last year’s Europeans — the only international held in 2020 — as he returned to medicine full-time during the pandemic.

The current European champions, the Netherlands pair Melvin Twellaar and Stef Broenink, will be the crew to beat, but the Norwegian lightweights, Strandli and Brun, will also be looking to make an impact against the heavier opposition.

Aileen Crowley and Monika Dukarska were the third Ireland crew to qualify for Tokyo two years ago when they finished in 8th place in Linz, after switching from sculling to sweep the previous season. An injury denied Dukarska the chance to race at last year’s Europeans, but a return to full fitness means a chance to race the Romanian gold medallists from 2020, Adriana Ailincai and Iuliana Buhus. Also looking to make an impact will be the British pair, Helen Glover and Polly Swann, who took the world title in 2013. Glover, 34, is a double Olympic champion in the event and has only recently returned to training following the birth of her two children.

2019 was a special year for the athletes bidding for places in Ireland’s women’s four, starting with Eimear Lambe and Emily Hegarty winning silver at the World U23s in Florida. They then joined forces with Aifric Keogh and Tara Hanlon and narrowly missed qualifying a boat for Tokyo with a 10th place finish at Linz.

Aileen Crowley (second from left) with Ireland rower team-mates Aifric Keogh, Fiona Murtagh and Eimear Lambe

Last year Murtagh, Lambe and Keogh won European bronze but there’s been another reshuffle this year to bring Hegarty back into the boat, and they now come up against the Netherlands and Italy, who topped the podium ahead of Ireland last year. But the biggest challenge for this crew comes next month in Switzerland, when they face the Final Olympic Qualifying Regatta, when the last few places will be decided for Tokyo.

Also looking to qualify the men’s heavyweight single for Tokyo will be Daire Lynch, the Clonmel sculler who subbed for Philip Doyle at least year’s Europeans and picked up a bronze with Ronan Byrne for his efforts.

Lucerne will also be a tough hurdle for Aoife Casey and Margaret Cremen in the lightweight women’s double. The two UCC athletes have been racing together since the World Juniors in 2017, and another UCC athlete, Lydia Heaphy, will race the lightweight single in Varese.