PAUL O’Donovan’s quest to win a SEVENTH World title got off to a winning start at the World Rowing Championships in Canada on Sunday.
The Skibbereen rower, fresh from his Olympic gold winning exploits at the Paris Games, is the man to beat in the lightweight men’s single sculls and showed this in a dominant heat win.
Never troubled, Paul won easing up, in a time of 6:41.98, to take the automatic spot in Friday’s A/B semi-finals; he was well clear of Mexico’s Alexis Lopez Garcia who was almost eight seconds behind. A look at the other heat winners show that USA’s Samuel Melvin, Italy’s Niels Torre and Austrian sculler Julian Schoeberl all advanced directly to the semi-finals too. All going well for Paul, the A final is on 8pm Saturday night, Skibb-time.
As expected, Paul O'Donovan makes light work of his lightweight single sculls heat at the World Rowing Championships, winning pulling up and advances to the A/B semi-final later in the week. pic.twitter.com/oGyZjZTYkb
— Kieran McCarthy (@KieranMcC_SS) August 18, 2024
The Lisheen man has won the World lightweight single scull titles on two previous occasions (2016 and ’17), as well as the World lightweight double title four times (2018, ’19, ’22 and ’23).
