#ROWING: The Ireland adaptive rowing crew which has qualified for the Paralympic Games in London took bronze at an international regatta in Varese in Italy on Saturday. The crew of Anne-Marie McDaid, Sarah Caffrey, Shane Ryan, Kevin du Toit and cox Helen Arbuthnot set a new Irish record of three minutes 28.3 seconds for the legs, trunk and arms mixed coxed four, filling  the third spot behind Britain and Germany. Today, Ireland, with Kevin Wall in for Ryan, finished fifth.

ROWING: Ireland’s two Olympic-class crews, the lightweight men’s double of Mark O’Donovan and Niall Kenny and single sculler Sanita Puspure, qualified for today’s first day of finals at the Memorial Paolo d’Aloja in Piediluco. Both finished second in their heats. Justin Ryan’s third place in the heat of the lightweight single scull also saw him qualify.

 The lightweight women's double scull of Claire Lambe and Siobhan McCrohan, who were entered in this event, were withdrawn and will also not go forward to the Olympic Qualifier next month. The head of the High Performance programme, Martin McElroy, said the crew had had consistent difficulities with making the required weight.

Memorial Paolo D’Aloja International Regatta, Piediluco, Italy

Heats (first three to today’s finals)

Men

Double Sculls – Heat One 1 Italy Four 6:35.41; 6 Queen’s University (Ireland) 6:56.68.

Lightweight Double Sculls – Heat Two: 1 Portugal 6:53.66, 2 Ireland (M O’Donovan, N Kenny) 6:55.08.

Lightweight Single Sculls – Heat One: 1 Italy (L Bertini) 7:46.06; 3 Ireland (J Ryan) 7:52.75; 4 Queen’s (D Evans) 7:57.75. Heat Two: 4 Ireland (M Maher) 7:51.85.

Women

Single Sculls – Heat One: 1 Serbia (I Obradovic) 8:19.01 2 Ireland (S Puspure) 8:24.84.