The World Rowing Championships In Amsterdam Got Off To A Great Start For The Irish Crew's At The Newly Developed Bosbaan Course

With a team of 14 athletes. Ireland are out to prove that they are more than capable of securing medals and top placing's.

The weather picked up from yesterday's rain and thunder storms to glorious sunshine. However, conditions were tough with a strong tail wind.

Paul O'Donovan rowed well and took third place at 500m behind the Portugal and Australia. The race was fought between these three scullers to the end, with O'Donovan taking an overall third place in a personal best time of 6:56. O'Donovan's heat was one of the fastest of the five heats equalling the time of Andrew Campbell Jrn (who beat O'Donovan a number of weeks ago at the World U-23 Rowing Championships in Varese, Italy).

Next up was the Women's pair of Leonora Kennedy and Lisa Dilleen. With the British World Champions and Olympic medal holders to contend with in their Heat. The Irish girls kept their placing the whole way down the course keeping Canada at bay who challenged them at 1500m. Ireland took second place gaining them a place in what will be a very tough quarter final.

The third Irish Race of the day was that of Lightweight double Claire Lambe and Denise Walsh. It was always going to be a challenging race. This hotly contested category being the only event for Women's lightweight rowing at Olympic competitions. Heat 1 started with the Irish double in lane six getting a good start and leaving nothing between themselves, Australia and Germany. This sequence continued for the whole race with Lambe and Walsh taking third place, only 2 seconds between the Irish, the Germans and winners Australia. The Irish double will now go through to the repechage.

The final race of the day for Team Ireland finished on a high note with the coveted Women's scull. European Bronze medallist Sanita Puspure raced against European Silver medallist Lisa Scheenard (Dutch). Puspure stormed ahead of the Chinese sculler and took the lead at 1000m. She powered home and looked strong throughout the race and took first place in the heat to win by well over 3 seconds to beating Dutch, Chinese and Croatian scullers.

A perfect finish to an excellent first day of Rowing for the Irish squad at the World Rowing Championships.

Tomorrow racing will continue for Irish crews with the lightweight men's pair of Niall Kenny and Mark O'Donovan at 14:19. At 16:11 the Women's double of Helen Walshe and Monika Dukarska and the Women's four will have their first race of the event at 17:00. (CET).