Ireland's top rowers had a very successful run at the enormous Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston. Sanita Puspure was part of the Great8 of top women scullers which won the Championship Eights on Sunday. The Ireland sculler had teamed up with Carling Zeeman to take fourth in the Championship Doubles on Saturday.
Paul O'Donovan and Gary O'Donovan came very close to winning the Championship Doubles. The Skibbereen men went off second behind the Penn Athletic Club and eventually finished just behind them in the time-trial event.
Mark O’Donovan and Shane O’Driscoll, the gold medallists in the lightweight pair at the World Championships, took seventh.
Shannon won the men's Master's (40+) eights. This crew comes together in the US to commemorate Eddie Crean, a member of Shannon Rowing Club who died in a cycling accident in 2014.
The big news off the course was that Jeremie Azou had retired. Azou and Pierre Houin had taken gold in the lightweight double at the Olympic Games – just ahead of Paul and Gary O'Donovan. "I'm not tired of winning; I am tired of all the sacrifices that entails," Azou (28) said on his blog.
