Two female Irish crews are heading to Switzerland this weekend, in a bid to join the four boats who have already secured their spot at the Tokyo Olympics.
The competing boats heading to Lucerne for the final Olympic qualifier are the Lightweight Women’s Double and Women’s Fours.
Fiona Murtagh, Eimear Lambe, Aifric Keogh and Emily Hegarty will be competing in the Women’s Four. They will be competing against seven other crews. There are two qualifying spots for the Olympics available in this category.
The crew won Silver at the 2021 European Rowing Championships last month in Varese. Last year Fiona, Eimear and Aifric won Bronze in the Women’s Four alongside Aileen Crowley at the 2020 European Championships.
Fiona recently won Bronze at the 2020 European Rowing Championships in Poznan and has won the Head of Charles two years in a row. Eimear has been competing internationally since 2015 and won Silver at the 2019 U23 World Rowing Championships.
Aifric has been a member of the high-performance team for several years, has won at the Irish Championships and has set new World Records on the ergometer.
Emily has been competing internationally for several years after she started rowing in 2009. She previously won the Silver Medal at the 2019 World U23 Championships in Sarasota and a bronze medal in the Women’s Pair at the U23 2020 European Rowing Championships.
Margaret Cremen and Aoife Casey will be racing in the Lightweight Women’s Double in Lucerne. There are sixteen crews entered in the Lightweight Women’s Double category. There is three qualifying spots available for the Olympics.
They finished 5th in the A Final at the 2021 European Rowing Championships. Last year they won the Silver Medal in the same category at the European U23 Rowing Championships.
Margaret and Aoife have competed together for several years and won Silver in this event at the Junior European Championships in 2017.
They finished second in the LW2x B Final at the 2020 European Rowing Championships in Poznan.
Racing will start on Saturday 15 May with the heats kicking off around 10am. The Quarter and Semi Finals will be on Sunday and the finals on Monday morning. A full breakdown of times will be available after the draw on Friday afternoon.
All the races will be covered live on Rowing Ireland’s social media channels.
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