Irish rowers Paul and Gary O’Donovan won gold in the final of the men’s lightweight double sculls at World Rowing Cup III in Lucerne, Switzerland at the weekend while teammate Sanita Puspure added to Ireland’s recent medal rush on the global stage taking silver in the women’s single sculls.
The Olympic silver medal-winning brothers from Skibbereen Rowing Club crossed the line 0.8 of a second ahead of the Belgium crew and Denmark in a nail-biting finish to their race.
“It was a pretty good race,” said O’Donovan speaking to media after the event.
“Denmark took over for a while but then we swapped. We managed to throw ourselves over the finish line in first.”
The Brothers will compete for Ireland in the lightweight men’s double at the European Championships in Scotland over the August bank holiday weekend.
Puspure was up against world champion Jannine Gmelin of Switzerland and a strong field in her final leading in the first 500m but just beaten out for Gold by 0.23 of a second by the world champion, Gmelin.
“I’m happy enough but in the end,” she told Cork’s Red FM.
“It was so close that it would have been nice to have come back with a gold as well and to have had two golds for the team would have been awesome, but not this time. We still have the World Championships ahead of us so, hopefully.”
“This has been a fantastic weekend for Irish rowing,” said Rowing Ireland CEO Michelle Carpenter.
“We’ve had an amazing three days here in Cork with the 2018 Irish Rowing Championships, where some new course records have been set by our younger rowers, and to see our senior athletes winning medals on the international stage at World Cup level is a fantastic achievement and a huge inspiration.