O’Donovan brothers survive late scare to strike gold

BROTHERS Paul and Gary O’Donovan took top spot in the final of the men’s lightweight double sculls in the World Rowing Cup III in Lucerne, Switzerland, yesterday.

The brothers, from Skibbereen in Cork, had to push themselves all the way to clinch the gold in a nail-biting finish. Across the final 250m, they had to stave off a late charge from Belgium and cross the line with 0.8 of a second to spare.

“It was a pretty good race, Denmark took over for a while, but then we swapped. We managed to throw ourselves over the finish line in first,” a relieved Gary O’Donovan said after the race.

Their focus now turns to the European Championships in Glasgow over the August bank holiday weekend.

Sanita Puspure, meanwhile, followed up her silver at World Cup II with another silver in the women’s single sculls. Puspure was pipped into second at the line by world champion Jeannine Gmelin of Switzerland having led from the first 500m.

“That was a tough race, really physical out there, but the conditions were really good,” said Puspure.

Earlier in the day, Mark O’Donovan and Shane O’Driscoll came third in the B final of the heavyweight men’s pair, pushing the British duo of Morgan Robert Hellen and Callum McBrierty into fourth.

Closer to home, yesterday was the final day of the Irish Rowing Championships at the National Rowing Centre in Cork, which featured the highly anticipated senior eights.

Skibbereen dominated the women’s senior eights race, leading from NUIG A. The Galway crew upped their stroke rate in the final sprint but it was too late. Dublin University Ladies finished in third.

In the second-last race, Commercial B came out on top in the men’s senior eights to clinch three in arowfortheirclub.

They were pushed all the way by a determined UCD crew and the end result was finally announced as Commercial by 0.57 seconds from UCD, with a composite University crew from NUIG/Queen’s University coming in third.