Ireland's Hilary Shinnick and Bridget Jacques, who are off on scholarships to US colleges this year, bounced back at the World Junior Championships in Trakai in Lithuania yesterday.
The Ireland junior double scull were on course to qualify directly for the semi-finals in Wednesday's heat but clipped a buoy and lost control of an oar when only 10 strokes from home. Yesterday, utilising the second chance of a repechage, they left the opposition behind and had no steering difficulties as they won by 14.51 seconds from Austria, who also go through to tomorrow's semi-finals.
Shinnick will start a sports scholarship to Notre Dame in the coming weeks and Jacques an academic scholarship in Princeton.
The Ireland men's double scull of Jack Casey and Andy Harrington will hope to join the women's double in the A/B semi-finals when they compete in their quarter-final today.
The two Ireland quadruple sculls will have to settle for places in the C or D Finals. The men's quadruple fought a brave fight for the second qualifying place behind Germany in their repechage yesterday, but Poland held them off by 12 hundredths of a second.
“They had a stunner of a last 500 (metres),” said Ireland coach Pat McInerney. “It wasn’t easy for such a light crew into a headwind. They put a good performance. They’ll be proud of it when they look back on it . . .”
The Ireland’s women’s quadruple scull was not competitive in its repechage, finishing fifth of five.
The Ireland trials for the 2014 season begin in just seven weeks’ time – much earlier than in recent years. The National Assessment in Newry in February now becomes an invitation-only event and effectively the second Ireland trial.
The selection of senior and under-23 crews is set for March at the National Rowing Centre in Cork. The official document says that the "final selection of World Championship crews" will be made at this point.
This year's World Championships begin in just over two weeks in Chungju in South Korea. Ireland will be without our sole Olympian from London, Sanita Puspure, whose season has been destroyed by illness . She has taken a few weeks out in her native Latvia and is back training, with her eyes on the trials and crew formation for the new season.
Rowing Ireland is teaming up with Queen’s University to run a camp for junior and under-23 athletes from August 27th-30th in Belfast and Newry. The deadline for entries is this coming Thursday, August 15th.
