Ireland won two silver medals at the World Rowing Champions on Sunday, with Fiona Murtagh finishing second in the A final of the women’s single sculls before Konan Pazzaia and Mags Cremen matched the feat in the mixed double sculls.On the final day of the championships in Amsterdam, Pazzaia and Cremen were first on the water for their semi-final, finishing third in the second race to qualify for the afternoon’s A final.The Dutch pair of Roos De Jong and Simon Van Dorp sealed gold in convincing style, crossing the line in 6:15.80, 6.54 seconds clear of Pazzaia and Cremen in second. Bronze went to Sophia Vitas and Cedar Cunningham of the USA.The result added to Cremen’s medal haul from the championships, having already won gold alongside Zoe Hyde in the women’s double sculls on Friday. In the women’s single sculls, a measured start from Murtagh had her at the back of the pack for the early stages before gradually upping the tempo to sit fourth by the midway point.Switzerland’s Karoliek Florijn set the early pace, holding the lead until Britain’s Lauren Henry launched her attack to the finish. Henry took the lead and built up a two-seconds gap to Florijn with 500m to go, at which point reigning-world-champion Murtagh made her move.The strong late push saw the Galway woman edge past the Swiss athlete in the closing stretch for the silver medal. Henry was the comfortable winner in 7:15.93, 2.11 seconds ahead of Murtagh, with Florijn taking bronze.“I’m really happy with it,” Murtagh said of her performance. “I’m really proud of how I’ve kind of grown throughout this competition. Prep was really hard, camp was tough, I spent a good three or four weeks on the bike and I didn’t see a lot of the boat at all from after Lucerne [Rowing World Cup event in June] until the second week of camp, so mentally that played a lot. I tried to downplay it quite a bit, but it’s been really hard.“I wanted to be resilient and, regardless of the challenges that I kind of face, that I could kind of grow from them and that anything that swings my way that I can take it on the chin and I can still lay down a performance.“I’ll look back on this race, was it ideal, no, but I really liked the last 750. I love how I moved through in the final sprint, I’m really proud of that. So more things to come.”Fintan McCarthy was also in action, finishing fifth in the B final of the men’s single sculls after missing out on the A final with his fourth-place finish in Saturday’s semi-final. The 29-year-old struggled to make headway on Sunday, briefly fighting his way up to fourth before slipping back to fifth, finishing in 6:46.07 as the win going to Switzerland’s Kai Schaetzle in 6:42.25.
Medals for Ireland as Fiona Murtagh, Mags Cremen and Konan Pazzaia win silvers at World Rowing Championships
Reigning world champion Murtagh digs deep to take second in women’s single sculls in Amsterdam
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