EMILY Hegarty will hope her previous experience of navigating through the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta will stand to her this weekend.
The Skibbereen rower is on the Irish women’s four crew that will compete at Lucerne (Sunday, 19th to Tuesday, 21st) as crews battle to win the last remaining spots in this summer’s Olympic Games in Paris.
Hegarty, Eimear Lambe (Old Collegians BC), Natalie Long (Lee Valley RC) and Imogen Magner (Carlow RC) are battling for two qualification places that are up for grabs, and will face intense competition from Denmark, Chile, Japan, Poland and Spain.
At World Cup I last month, which was this Irish women’s four first outing together, they finished fourth in the A final, just ahead of the Danish crew they will be competing against in Lucerne. When winning their heat, the Irish boat finished well clear of Spain, but they’ll know too that it’s all about dealing with the pressure at this regatta. Hegarty has experience here – she was on the Irish women’s four crew that qualified for the Tokyo Olympics through the same route and then took that momentum to the Games where they won a brilliant bronze medal. So too was current crew-mate Lambe.
‘I definitely think that experience will help because it’s a very daunting regatta to head into,’ Hegarty told the Star last month. ‘We had a good experience last time and know what to expect now, the highs and the lows it brings. Our experience was a positive one and because we have done it before, we know what we need to do.’
Sanita Puspure (Old Collegians BC) in the Irish women’s single and Konan Pazzaia (Queen’s University Belfast BC) in the Irish men’s single will also be in action in Lucerne.
