Super Saturday as FOUR Skibbereen rowers in World finals

IT promises to be a super Saturday for Skibbereen rowers at the World Rowing Championships.

FOUR Skibbereen rowers will compete in THREE finals in one action-packed hour in in Racice in the Czech Republic.

Kicking it off at 1.07pm in the Women's Lightweight Doubles A final are Aoife Casey and Margaret Cremen. In their A/B semi-final on Thursday Casey and Cremen finished second. They sat in third place behind Great Britain and Greece through the halfway point, but it was during the third quarter of the race that their strength really stood to them, as the Greek double began to fade away and they continued to gain speed. In the end Casey and Cremen finished just 3.48 seconds behind Imogen Grant and Emily Craig of GB.

At 1.23pm on Saturday afternoon Olympic, World and European champions Paul O'Donovan and Fintan McCarthy will put their World title on the line in the Lightweight Men's Double Sculls A final. In Thursday's A/B semi-final the Swiss lightweight men's double put up a fight against Paul and Fintan, leading the crew from Ireland to the 1000m and then putting in a big push through the second half of the race, but there was no stopping the boys from West Cork. Continuing to pull away from the Swiss, Ireland finished in first place in a time of 6:24.41. With another win under their belt, they head into the A final on Saturday afternoon.

The women's four of Emily Hegarty, Fiona Murtagh, Eimear Lambe and Aifric Keogh did not disappoint on Thursday either as they booked their place in the A final (1.39pm on Saturday). The crew from Ireland finished second in their semi-final, putting them through to the A final, and are the second fastest boat going into it. They held second place from start to finish, holding off the Chinese crew who put down a strong start, and gained a second on the GB crew in the final 500m.