# ROWING: Sanita Puspure is the Afloat Rower of the Month for August. The Cork-based athlete overcame an illness prior to the Olympic Games at Eton Dorney and represented Ireland well. She was unlucky to be drawn in an extremely tough quarter-final, where she finished fourth in a race won by eventual Olympic Champion Mirka Knapkova. Puspure won the C Final well, placing her 13th overall at her first Olympic Games, and suggesting that her ambitions of climbing the world rankings are well-grounded.  

Rower of the Month awards: The judging panel is made up of Liam Gorman, rowing correspondent of The Irish Times and David O'Brien, Editor of Afloat magazine. Monthly awards for achievements during the year will appear on afloat.ie and the overall national award will be presented to the person or crew who, in the judges' opinion, achieved the most notable results in, or made the most significant contribution to rowing during 2012. Keep a monthly eye on progress and watch our 2012 champions list grow.

# ROWING: Martin McElroy, the Ireland High Performance Director, will not be seeking renewal of his contract when it finishes at the end of next month. The Galway man took up work as HPD in 2009, stressing that his priority was to build a sustainable system, and one which would outlast him.

Forming a strong under-23 group was a priority, and there were successes here, including a silver medal for the men’s lightweight quadruple at the World Under-23 Championships in 2010. Ten athletes represented Ireland at this year’s World Under-23 Championships.

A team of coaches was also formed and the National Rowing Centre became the base for an ambitious group of athletes.

However, just one senior athlete competed for Ireland at the Olympic Games - Sanita Puspure finished 13th in the single sculls. The strong hopes for the lightweight double scull of Siobhan McCrohan and Claire Lambe ended controversially when McCrohan was cut because of difficulties making the weight.

Rowing Ireland has advertised for a new HPD, with entries closing on September 14th.

# ROWING: Ireland’s Mark O’Donovan and Niall Kenny missed out on the chance of Olympic Qualification when they finished fifth in their lightweight double scull semi-final at the Olympic Qualification Regatta in Lucerne today. The race was won by Australia, but the three boats behind them finished so close together that there was a a long delay as the judges decided which two landed positions in the final. The verdict went to Austria and Bulgaria – credited with exactly the same time – with Spain losing out. Ireland had not looked likely to land one of the top three spots for most of the race.

Olympic Qualification Regatta, Lucerne, Switzerland

Men

Lightweight Double Scull – Semi-Finals (Three to A Final; rest to B Final) – Semi-Final One: 1 Hungary (Z Hirling, T Varga) 6:31.46, 2 United States (A Campbell Jr, W Daly) 6:33.77, 3 Switzerland (S Zehnder, M Schmid) 6:38.01; 4 Poland 6:41.29, 5 Sweden 6:44.72, 6 Slovenia 6:45.28. Semi-Final Two: 1 Australia (R Chisholm, T Gibson) 6:33.03, 2= Austria (P Sieber, B Sieber) 6:35.66, 2=Bulgaria (Z Karaivanov, V Vitanov) 6:35.66; 4 Spain (A Bertran Sastre, D Sigurjorsson Benet) 6:36.09, 5 Ireland (M O’Donovan, N Kenny) 6:39.18, 6 Czech Republic 6:53.74.

Women

Single Scull – Semi-Final One (Three to A Final; rest to B Final): 1 Australia (K Crow) 7:32.83, 2 Serbia (I Obradovic) 7:37.99, 3 Ireland (S Puspure) 7:41.27; 4 Norway (T Gjoertz) 7:42.55, 5 Ukraine (N Huba) 7:52.73, 6 Britain (R Gamble-Flint) 7:52.90. Semi-Final Two: 1 Denmark (FU Erichsen) 7:36.13, United States (G Stone) 7:39.48, Estonia (K Pajusalu) 7:42.79; France 7:48.85, 5 Latvia 8:02.96, 6 Bulgaria 8:03.05