European rowing championships: Fintan McCarthy and Hugh Moore, Philip Doyle and Daire Lynch advance

Olympic gold medallist Fintan McCarthy booked his spot in the European Rowing Championships semi-finals alongside new lightweight double sculls partner Hugh Moore in Bled, Slovenia this morning.

World U23 silver-medal winner Moore has stepped up to replace Paul O'Donovan, who is sitting college exams, and the new-look pairing pipped the Polish boat by .84 of a second (6:26.98) to win their heat.

McCarthy will hope to take another step towards a third European title in a row in Friday afternoon's semis (from 2pm).

Philip Doyle and Daire Lynch booked their spot in Saturday's men's double sculls semi-final with victory in their heat, coming in almost two and a half seconds ahead of France in 6:23.73.

Women's four bronze medal winners in Tokyo, Aifric Keogh, Fiona Murtagh and Eimear Lambe, were joined by Tara Hanlon, who replaced Emily Hegarty last year.

They finished second in their heat (6:43.36) but only winners Great Britain, who beat the same quartet to the gold medal in Munich, advance to the final so the Irish boat will go again in the repechage tomorrow.

As will a number of other Irish competitors.

Two-time World and European single sculls champion Sanita Puspure now competes in the double sculls with Zoe Hyde and they finished second in their heat in 7:04.68 behind the Netherlands.

Siobhan McCrohan was also second (7:54.39) in her lightweight single sculls heat, almost six seconds behind Greece's Evangelia Anastasiadou.

John Kearney, Ross Corrigan, Nathan Timoney and Fionnán McQuillan-Tolan were third in their men's four heat (6:05.77), just .07 of a second behind runners-up Italy.

Brian Colsh (7:11.45) was also third in the men's single sculls, as were Aoife Casey and Margaret Cremen in the lightweight women's double sculls.