Puspure powers into Olympic semi-final

'My performance is going to go up with every race, so I’m confident in the programme that we did in the last month'.

Sanita Puspure

Sanita Puspure wasn’t making a huge deal of it but one of Ireland’s leading medal hopes was at least thankful to have put her Olympic semi-final “curse” to bed at the third time of asking.

This is the 38-year old single sculler’s third Games but the first time she has progressed to this point. In London, nine years ago, she fell over three seconds short of a semi spot in the quarter-finals. In Rio, in 2016, she was 0.65 seconds shy of making it.