ROWING Irish lightweight four finish fifth in final at opening Rowing World Cup

In the final of the opening Rowing World Cup of the season in Munich today (11th May) the Irish men's lightweight four (LM4-) of Paul Griffin, Richard Archibald, Gearoid Towey and Eugene Coakley finished fifth. The other Irish crew in action; the heavyweight men's four (M4-) of Alan Martin, Cormac Folan, Sean O'Neill and James Wall finished fourth in their B final to take tenth place overall at this regatta.

With the strong headwind blowing across the course, the organisers again took the decision to seed crews for this afternoon’s races. This gave the best performers in yesterday’s semi-finals the more favourable lanes, which offered some shelter on the stand side of the course approaching the finish.

The Irish lightweight quartet who failed to qualify for the Beijing Olympics at last year’s world championships have regained some of the form they showed in 2006, at this regatta, satisfyingly returning to A final action. In today’s A final two other non qualified boats were racing alongside the Irish; Germany and Serbia. The Germans showed excellent form to take the bronze medal behind 2007 and 2006 world champions; Great Britain and China, in silver and gold respectively. However, notably in finishing fifth the Irish were nine seconds ahead of the sixth place Serbians.
 
On assessing their regatta Richard Archibald said “We’ve used this as a learning experience; we had an okay heat, being honest a pretty ropey semi-final and then today. I think we thought about it, and we experimented and we came out of it with a good row today. I think with the conditions still unfair we put in a good performance, and put ourselves in a good position.”

With the bowman in the heavyweight four (M4-) James Wall having a three week injury enforced break leading into this regatta, preparation for this four wasn’t ideal as stroke man Alan Martin pointed to in his assessment of their regatta;

“We didn’t have a great race today. We just got into this combination a few days ago and you can see we tend to pay the price for that as the regatta goes on with a lack of togetherness, and just time in the boat together. We’ve a couple of weeks now before the next regatta in Lucerne and hopefully we’ll get an improvement with that time together”, he said.
 
The other five Irish crews in action all concluded their participation at this World Cup yesterday by racing in the minor finals for placings (details below).The next leg of the Rowing World Cup gets underway on 30th May in Switzerland, with the final Olympic Qualifying regatta from June 15th - 18th in Poland.
Ends.
Issued on behalf of the Irish Amateur Rowing Union by the Irish Sports Council

For Further Information:
Sinéad McElroy, Press Officer to the Irish team, Irish Sports Council; 087-6338512 smcelroy@irishsportscouncil.ie

Additional Information:
For race times and live results visit www.worldrowing.com

IMAGES: Stock pics team are available reproduction fee free from Sportsfile 01-4547400 www.sportsfile.com

Results for Irish team at Rowing World Cup 1 – Munich, Germany
M4- Heavyweight Men’s Four, 4th in B final; 10th overall
Alan Martin (NUIG)
Cormac Folan (NUIG)
Sean O’Neill (St. Michael’s)
James Wall (NUIG)

LM4- Lightweight Men’s Four, 5th in A final, 5th overall
Paul Griffin (Muckross)
Richard Archibald (Lady Victoria BC)
Gearoid Towey (Fermoy)
Eugene Coakley (Skibbereen)

LM2x Lightweight Men’s Double Sculls, won final E; 25th overall
Cathal Moynihan (Neptune)
Richard Coakley (Skibbereen)

M1x Heavyweight Men’s Single Sculls, 6th in final D; 24th overall
Sean Jacob (Commercial)

M2- Heavyweight Men’s Pair, won final D, 19th overall
Sean Casey (Muckross)
Jonno Devlin

W2x Heavyweight Women’s Double Sculls, 2nd final D, 20th overall
Sinéad Jennings (St. Michael’s)
Caroline Ryan (Garda)

LW2x Lightweight Women’s Double Sculls, 6th in C final, 18th overall
Niamh NiCheilleachair (Castleconnell)
Orlagh Duddy (Belfast)
Richard Archibald (Lady Victoria BC)
Gearoid Towey (Fermoy)
Eugene Coakley (Skibbereen)

Key Dates
Rowing World Cup 2:   Lucerne, Switzerland 30th May – 1st June
Final Olympic Qualifying Regatta: Poznan, Poland 15th-18th June
Rowing World Cup 3:   Poznan, Poland 20th – 22nd June
Olympic Regatta:   Beijing, China 9-17th August