ROWERS KEEP MAKING WAVES
ANOTHER week goes by and still Irish rowers continue to excel.
Shane Mulvaney and David O’Malley took gold in the lightweight men’s pair at the World U-23 Championships in Poland over the weekend.
And the lightweight men’s quad of Andrew Goff, Ryan Ballantine, Niall Beggan and Miles Taylor won silver, which was particularly impressive after they made the semi-final through the repechage.
Not only did both crews show form but improvement. Mulvaney and O’Malley took bronze at the same event last year when several of the quad also took bronze. The team also recorded two fifth-place finishes in a great team effort in Poznan. Further proof that Irish rowing is not only consistently world-class now but also still improving.
IT’S testament to the new regime at Rowing Ireland that the nation’s rowers can look back on the World U-23 Championships in Poland as the country’s most successful.
Never before had Ireland won a gold medal at these championships. So, when Shane Mulvaney and David O’Malley crossed the line in first place in the lightweight pairs final, they were making Irish rowing history.
But the story goes much deeper as Ireland qualified four crews – their record total – for the ‘A’ finals and from that also came a silver medal for the lightweight men’s quad.
When the lightweight pair qualified direct from last Wednesday’s heats, it was clear that Mulvaney and O’Malley had a chance of improving on last year’s bronze.
The Greek pair of Antonios Papakonstantnou and Ioannis Marokos were first to show in Saturday’s final, followed by Italy and Ireland.
After 500 metres, Germany overhauled the UCD men for third but Mulvaney and O’Malley
steadily clawed their way back through the field and, in a dash for the line, they beat Greece to the gold by 1.76 seconds.
Minutes later, it was the turn of Miles Taylor, Niall Beggan, Ryan Ballantine and Andrew Goff, to win silver in the lightweight men’s quad, the boat class in which Beggan and Goff won bronze last year in Bulgaria.
Spain led Italy and Ireland through the first 500 metres but the Spaniards paid the price for the early push and faded out of the picture as the USA came through to second place behind Italy, with Ireland hanging on in third.
Ireland overhauled the Americans in a burst for the line to claim the silver.
In yesterday’s racing, heavyweight sculler Ronan Byrne lined up alongside world champion Trevor Jones of Canada and Bulgaria’s Olympian Boris Yotov, and finally met his match in a tough contest.
The Cork sculler had shown no fear in dominating his heat and quarter-final earlier in the week, but simply to make the final was an achievement in itself.
Jones took the gold medal, retaining the world title from 2017, while German Marc Weber grabbed silver ahead of bronze for Yotov.
It was a similar story for Skibbereen scullers Fintan and Jacob McCarthy who finished out of the frame in their final of the lightweight doubles.
Favourites Spain and Italy shared gold and silver ahead of third placed German, while Ireland finished fifth, a big step up from eighth place in 2017.
Meawhile in the Coupe de la Jeunesse, hosted in Cork’s National Centre, Odhran Donaghy and Nathan Timoney were the best of the Irish taking bronze behind Belgium and Italy in the men’s pair.