Fintan McCarthy and Fiona Murtagh progress at World Rowing Championships

Reigning world champion Fiona Murtagh finished second in her heat at the World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam to qualify for the quarter-finals. Pic: Detlev Seyb/World Rowing

Fintan McCarthy progressed to the quarter-finals of the men’s single sculls at the World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam with a second-place finish in his heat.

The two-time Olympic lightweight double sculls champion finished 4.22 seconds behind American Samuel Melvin to claim one of the automatic qualifying spots. He finished tenth fastest overall.

"It's been a successful enough summer, so I'm just trying to see how I get on," said the Corkman, who is competing in his debut season in the openweight category.

"Really good training with the women's double. It looks like we're both in pretty good shape. Nice to get the first one out of the way."

Earlier, reigning world champion Fiona Murtagh qualified for the quarter-finals of the women’s single sculls by finishing second in her heat.

The Galway rower started the race slowly but had moved into the automatic qualifying places with 500m remaining.

In a tightly contested race, she finished in 8:01.18, just 0.20 seconds behind South African winner Paige Badenhorst and 0.53 ahead of Switzerland’s Aurelia-Maxima Katharina Janzen. Murtagh was fourth fastest overall.

The second heat was won by Dutch Olympic champion Karolien Florijn, while Great Britain’s reigning European champion Lauren Henry - who finished narrowly behind Murtagh at the 2025 championships - took the fourth heat. Olympic bronze medallist Viktorija Senkutė of Lithuania won the third heat.

McCarthy and Murtagh will compete in their quarter-finals on Friday.