Paul O'Donovan and Fintan McCarthy turn attention to semi duties

Ireland's Paul O'Donovan and Fintan McCarthy compete in the lightweight men's double sculls rowing heat. Pic: Ebrahim Noroozi, AP

It's time to find out, to see if that rare defeat Ireland's star rowing duo suffered back in May was an anomaly - a mere blip in their consistent brilliance - or if it really was an early fissure that will see their empire crumble here in Paris.

In the lightweight double sculls semi-final at the Vaires-sur-Marne this morning, Paul O'Donovan and Fintan McCarthy will size up to Swiss pair Jan Schaeuble and Raphael Ahumada. They've got some history.

The duo beat O'Donovan and McCarthy to silver at the World Cup in Lucerne two months ago, with the Italians over a second in front of both. 

They are the two nations O'Donovan and McCarthy know pose the biggest threat in Paris. Following their heat win on Sunday, McCarthy said they had “shifted the target on to the big guns” following that loss, doing his best to downplay the expectation to win gold that now follows them everywhere.

"People are delusional if they’re having that talk at the minute," said O'Donovan. "The pressure is on everyone else here and we’re just here to enjoy ourselves, put out the best we can and take a few scalps, all going well."

McCarthy said they are “way fitter” now than they were in May and "haven’t even had one day off since". 

The race goes to the line at 10.14am Irish time and the top three will advance to the A final. Ten minutes before that, Fiona Murtagh and Aifric Keogh will hope to book their place in the women's pair A final by securing a top-three finish in the semi-final.

Meanwhile, Philip Doyle and Daire Lynch turned in a statement performance in their semi-finals of the men’s double sculls yesterday, powering to victory and marking themselves out as gold medal contenders.

“We did what we wanted to do, executed well,” said Doyle. “We knew there’d be a couple of cheeky lads who’d go off like the clappers at the start but we knew if they were going to go off and do silly things, they were going to pay for it later in the race. But we had confidence we could make them pay.” 

They were forced to dig deep in the final quarter as New Zealand and USA upped their stroke rates, but the Irish had more than enough in reserve to take victory in 6:13.14, with USA second in 6:14.19.

“It’s nice to be a heat winner,” said Doyle. “At the World Championships we didn’t win one race and came away with a medal so it’d be nice to win two. I was always transparent that I wanted to make it to the medal final. It’s looking good from now on.” 

There was no joy for Zoe Hyde and Alison Bergin in the women’s double sculls semi-final, the duo coming up four seconds short of a place in the A final, finishing fifth in 6:55.08.

In the women’s four, Imogen Magner, Eimear Lambe, Natalie Long and Emily Hegarty came up short of qualification for the A final, finishing fourth in their repechage in 6:38.10.