The three NUIG rowers who will be travelling to the Olympic Games in Beijing finished in eleventh position in Poland last weekend – at the final World Cup event of the season.

James Wall, Alan Martin and Cormac Folan combined with Sean O'Neill from the St. Michaels club to come home fifth in the B final of the Men's Heavyweight Four event at the Poznan regatta. A poor start to the race scuppered the Irish boat's victory chances but a fast second 500 metres edged them in front of the Egyptian crew into fifth.

However, a strong finish wasn't enough to take fourth from Britain and the Irish finished six seconds behind winners Italy, who came home ahead of crews from Belarus and Argentina.

Afterwards, Folan admitted the crew were hoping for a better finish but were focusing now on their first Olympic Games. "We're a little disappointed with our row this morning; obviously we would have liked to finish higher but we just have to look forward now to Beijing, and try and make sure we have the fastest crew going there, and just get the boat going as well as possible for the Games."

He continued: "The main thing is we're just going to take what we've learnt from the World Cup season, and just look forward now as the next five weeks are everything. We're going to put the heads down, get the boat together, and get it going well. I think if we do that we're capable of getting the result of last year, and maybe better."

Meanwhile, in the Men's Lightweight Single Sculls event at the same regatta, Dave Mannion of NUIG had a fine row to take the C final, finishing 13th overall, while clubmate Liam Molloy came in third in the same race to take 15th overall.

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