Sanita Puspure on track for fourth appearance at Olympics

It was a successful opening day in Lucerne for Irish crews at the final qualification event for the Olympic Games.

Rowing is Sport Ireland's highest funded discipline, receiving over €1m due to the success of the programme in Tokyo 2020, claiming a historic gold and silver. The crews will be looking to add to their medal haul in two months' time in Paris.

Five Irish boats have already qualified for the 2024 games, with three more hoping to be added to the tally over the three-day event in Switzerland.

Three-time Olympian Sanita Puspure showed a display of dominance in the women's single scull event, winning heat two 12 seconds ahead of the next competitor.

The Cork-based athlete looks set to make her fourth Games, taking a length off the rest of the field in the first 500m and positioning herself as fastest qualifier into the A/B semi-finals on Monday.

A quartet of Emily Hegarty, Eimear Lambe, Natalie Long and Imogen Magner finished second in the preliminary round of the women's four event.

Beaten to the line by Denmark, the Irish boat chased all the way, creating clear water back to Poland, Japan, Spain and Chile.

This qualifies the team for the final on Tuesday, where the top two will qualify for Paris.

Hegarty and Lambe were part of the bronze medal-winning boat in 2020 and will hope to bring their experience to secure qualification for Paris.

Ireland's final boat in the water was Konan Pazzaia of Queen's University Belfast Boat Cub.

Pazzaia won heat one of the men's single scull in six minutes 58.93 seconds, ahead of the USA's Jacob Plihal.

With 30 men entered in the last gasp for the Olympics, finishing first and avoiding the repechage means the 23-year-old will enter tomorrow's two races with fresher legs.

Ireland's final