World champ Paul powers to personal best

Twelve wins for Skibbereen Rowing Club at Cork regatta

WORLD rowing champion Paul O’Donovan showed his power once more with his fastest ever time as a single sculler at the Cork City Regatta last weekend.

Skibbereen Rowing Club continued their impressive run of form, rounding off the weekend and the last Grand League Regatta of the season with a total of 12 wins at the National Rowing Centre, and O’Donovan’s terrific win in the men’s single sculls on Saturday was one of the highlights of the event.

A devastating display saw Paul beat his brother Gary by 14 seconds in the Division 1 A final in six minutes 50.819 seconds, which was a personal best for the world single sculls champion and faster than the lightweight single sculls winning time at the recent World Cup II regatta in Poznan, Poland.

Paul’s time was seven seconds outside the world’s best ever time for a lightweight single sculler. Gary took second place in the race.  

Skibbereen also dominated the B final with Aodhán Burns and Keelan Mannix taking the top two spots.

Sinead Coakley kicked off Skibbereen’s medal tally on Saturday with a convincing win in the women’s junior 14 single scull. This was followed in quick succession with wins from Orla Hayes (lightweight), Aoife Casey (junior 18), Lydia Heaphy (intermediate) and the men’s junior 14 crew of Eoghan Barry (cox), Tom Kavanagh, Oisín Boyle, Oisín O’Sullivan and Kilian O’Reilly. 

Following their recent international wins including capturing the European title, Mark O’Donovan and Shane O’Driscoll finished strongly to win the pair final in a competitive race with UCD BC and stretch their unbeaten pair run this year. There were notable wins for the club in the women’s Division 2 eight and men junior 14 single scull (Tom Kavanagh).

Day two (Sunday) brought to a close an extremely successful regatta for Skibbereen Rowing Club as the composite crew of Skibbereen and UCC won the women’s eight with the final few strokes, winning by three tenths of a second over NUIG.  

Gary and Paul O’Donovan maintained their winning form in the men’s double sculls final and the composite crew of Skibbereen and UCC took first place in the women’s four.

With the summer regatta season fully underway, all roads now lead back to the National Rowing Centre in three weeks for the National Rowing Championships from July 14th to 16th.