Good day for the Irish at the World Rowing Championships

Seven Irish crews took to the water for day two at the 2023 World Rowing Championships.

SEMI-FINALS: Women’s Lightweight x2 Heats Ireland’s Mags Cremen and Aoife Casey on their way to qualifying for the semi-final. Pic: ©INPHO/Maren Derlien

It was a good day for the seven Irish crews who took to the water for day two of the 2023 World Rowing Championship in Belgrade.

Corks Margaret Cremen and Aoife Casey made it through comfortably to the A/B semis of the lightweight women's double. With two automatic spots into the semi's up for grabs, Ireland and Romania broke away from the rest of the field just after the halfway mark. Romania's Ionela Cozmiuc and Mariana-Laura Dumitru won silver in this event in July so Ireland are where they want to be finishing just .38 of a second behind them.

Alison Bergin (Fermoy RC) and Zoe Hyde (Killorglin RC) won their heat and are into the A/B semis for the women's double. It was a competitive race with the top three crews less than two seconds apart coming into the final 500m with only two getting directly into the semis. Ireland were the fastest boat for the second half of the race and was enough to get them ahead of Lithuania to take first place. They will be in the A/B semi on Thursday where progression into the A final would secure a place for Paris 2024.

Skibbereen lightweight sculler Jake McCarthy is into the quarter-finals after winning in his repechage. McCarthy was in second place throughout the race but moved into first in the final quarter ahead of New Zealand's Finlay Hamill. 

Fiona Murtagh (University of Galway BC) and Aifric Keogh (Dublin University Ladies BC) got their World Championship campaign off to a good start coming in second in their heat. They go into tomorrow's repechage as just one boat makes it into the A/B semis. The winners of the heat were Netherlands Veronique Meester and Ymkje Clevering. They won silver at the Europeans earlier this year and were part of the Dutch four that won silver at the Tokoyo Olympics.

The women's four combination of Eimear Lambe, Sanita Puspure, Imogen Magner and Natalie Long took to the water for their first race this morning. They sat in third place from the start  and held their position which was enough to secure a place in A/B semi. Reigning World Champions Great Britain were first over the line with Tokoyo 2020 champions Australia securing second place. Both crews medalled recently at the World Cup taking home silver and bronze respectively.

John Kearney, Jack Dorney, Adam Murphy and Fionnàn McQuillan-Tolan finishd sixth in their men's four heat and are into the repechage. They race tomorrow against Denmark, Ukraine, Romania and Germany with three to go through to the A/B semi.

The men's quad of Brian Colsh, Andrew Sheehan, Ronan Byrne and Konan Pazzaia finished their heat in sixth sending them into the repechage. This is the first time Ireland have a heavyweight men's quad compete at the World Championships and the quad only being raced four times between 2004 and 2007.

Three of the four rowers raced recently and medalled at the U23 World Championships, Colsh and Pazzaia winning gold in the double and Sheehan winning silver in the single. They race in the repechage tomorrow where they take on Czechia, Lithuania, Norwary, Australia and the USA with three boats progressing into the semi/

 

Tuesday Schedule (IST) 

9:30am - PR2 Mix2x Heat 

10:40am - W2- Repechage 

11:15am - M4- Repechage 

11:36am - M4x Repechage