The first day of the World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam got off to a great start for the Irish crews at the newly developed Bosbaan Course.
With a team of 14 athletes Ireland are out to prove that they are more than capable of securing medals and top placings.
The weather picked up from yesterdays rain and thunder storms to glorious sunshine. However, conditions were tough with a strong tail wind at the Bosbaan course.
In the men’s lightweight scull Paul O’Donovan rowed well and took third place at 500m behind Portugal and Australia. The race was fought between these three scullers to the end, with O’Donovan taking an overall third place in a personal best time of 6:56. He will now go through to the Quarter Final.
Next up was the Women’s pair of Leonora Kennedy and Lisa Dilleen with the British World Champions and Olympic medal holders to contend with in their Heat. The Irish girls kept their placing the whole way down the course keeping Canada, who challenged them at 1500m, at bay. Ireland took second place gaining them a place in what will be a tough quarter final.
The third Irish race of the day was that of lightweight double Claire Lambe and Denise Walsh and it was always going to be a challenging race. Heat 1 started well with the Irish double in lane six getting a good start and leaving nothing between themselves, Australia and Germany. This sequence continued for the whole race with Lambe and Walsh taking third place, with only 2 seconds between the Irish, the Germans and winners Australia. The Irish double will now go through to the repechage.
The final race of the day for Team Ireland finished on a high note with the coveted Women’s single scull event. European Bronze medallist Sanita Puspure raced against European Silver medallist Lisa Scheenard (Dutch). Puspure stormed ahead of the Chinese sculler and took the lead the 1000m mark. She powered home and looked strong throughout the race and took first place in the heat to win by well over 3 seconds to beat Dutch, Chinese and Croatian scullers. Puspure will now race in the quarter finals.
A perfect finish to an excellent first day of Rowing for the Irish squad at the World Rowing Championships.
Todays racing will continue for Irish crews with the lightweight mens pair of Niall Kenny and Mark O’Donovan at 13:19. At 15:11 the Womens double of Helen Walshe and Monika Dukarska and the Women’s four will have their first race of the event at 16:00. (All Irish time).
Rowing Ireland will have live updates of the World Championships on twitter/Facebook and the website.
You can also watch the heats on www.worldrowing.com on their live tracker as well as: Entries, start lists, results, and related PDFs, Race reports, Audio commentary (please note certain web browsers may require additional plugins), Photos, Feature stories and Live blog
Live video coverage will be available on the World Rowing website From 28 August at 13:15 (Irish Time). Video coverage will include all A-finals, B-finals in most boat classes and Semi-finals in Olympic boat classes and men’s and women’s lightweight single sculls. For the complete schedule,click here.
World Rowing also posts information through social media. The official Twitter account of World Rowing is @WorldRowing. The official hashtag for the event is #WRChamps. World Rowing will provide updates and short commentary via Twitter. Athletes and fans are encouraged to tweet messages of support using the official hashtag.
Live coverage of the Finals can also be seen on BBC two on Saturday 30th August from 12:15 to 14:15 and on Sunday 31st from 12:00 to 13:45
And again don’t forget to tweet Rowing Ireland with your well wishes to the team.@rowingireland #WRChamps #goteamIRL
