O’Donovans back in the groove

ROWING

PAUL and Gary O’Donovan progressed to the semi-final of the lightweight men’s double sculls in the World Cup event in Belgrade in their first race together since winning gold at the Rio Olympics last August.

The O’Donovans edged the Czech crew of Miroslav Vrastil and Jiri Simanek by .06 of a second, in the fastest time across the three heats, with the next crew almost ten seconds further back.

Their Skibbereen clubmate Denise Walsh won her 2,000m heat by .71 of a second and goes straight through the A final tomorrow morning, where she is guaranteed at least a top-six finish.

Sanita Puspure placed third in her heat and will now have to contest the repechage this afternoon for another chance to qualify for the A final.

Mark O’ Donovan and Shane O’ Driscoll, competing in the heavyweight pair heats as opposed to their usual lightweight division, finished fourth in their heat; they were due to go again in the repechages in the afternoon, but stormy weather forced a postponement to today.

It was decided that the Irish crew would withdraw, and concentrate on tomorrow’s lightweight race – a straight final due to a low number of entries.

BOXING

KIERAN MOLLOY is through to the today’s final at the Feliks Stamm Elite multi-nations in Warsaw after recording his third win in three days.

The Galway welterweight, who meets Poland’s Mateusz Kostecki for gold, beat Armenia’s Garnik Papikyan on a unanimous decision in an all southpaw battle, but Myles Casey lost to Poland’s Jaroslaw Iwanow.

“It was a very tactical bout. Kieran boxed excellently, very clever, good hand speed. He’s getting better with each fight,” said Irish team manager Francis Keeling.

GOLF

EUGENE SMITH led the Irish charge after the first round of the Lytham Trophy at Royal Lytham and St Anne’s on the Lancashire coast yesterday.

The Laytown and Bettystown man returned a four-over-par 74 to be six strokes behind early leader Jack Singh Brar.

Smith fired six bogeys in seven holes on the way out but he had birdies on 10 and 12 to steady the ship, finishing with six straight pars.

Portmarnock’s Geoff Lenehan carded a 76 including a triplebogey seven on the eighth. A back nine of 36 kept him in the hunt.

ATHLETICS

GERMANY’S Thomas Rohler moved up to second in the all-time list of longest javelin throwers on the opening night of the 2017 Diamond League.

The 25-year-old recorded a distance of 93.90metres to win in Doha, leaving him behind only Czech double Olympic champion Jan Zelezny, who threw 98.48m in 1996.

South Africa’s Akani Simbine beat Asafa Powell in the men’s 100m, with Justin Gatlin fourth, while Jamaica’s Olympic champion Elaine Thompson pipped world champion Dafne Schippers in the women’s 200m.

In the women’s 800m, double Olympic champion Caster Semenya took victory in a world-leading time of one minute 56.61 seconds.