Paul O'Donovan and Fintan McCarthy reach men's heavyweight double semi-finals at World Cup regatta
The Olympic gold medallists moved up after their lightweight rowing was no longer an Olympic class.
McCarthy teamed up with Konan Pazzaia to take bronze at the European Championships last month and the two did enough to qualify from an exciting heat in Lucerne. First and second were guaranteed semi-final places.
Azerbaijan led through the first two quarters, but in the third quarter New Zealand grabbed the lead and did not let it go, despite a feisty effort by Ireland, who hit 42 strokes per minute as the line approached but had to settle for second.
O'Donovan and his new partner, Daire Lynch, were also involved in a battle coming to the line of their heat and also took second.
This time the Independent Neutral Athletes (AIN) crew battled it out with the Irish, and Aleksandr Iakolev and Andrei Potapkin held on to win, by just .24 of a second. The AIN moniker has allowed some athletes from Russia and associated countries to compete.
Lynch took bronze at last year's Olympic Games in a double with Philip Doyle, and will hope to step back up to that level. 'Tough enough going. Hopefully we'll get better,' he told Worldrowing.com after the heat.
The morning had started well for Ireland. Fiona Murtagh won the very first race of the day.
The Olympic medallist in the four from 2021 came into this heat of the single sculls on the back of a silver at the European Championships and she is revelling in this new discipline for her.
She saw off Swiss and Belgian competition to qualify directly for Saturday's semi-final in the second fastest time of the day.
'Bit of a slow start, bit of a headwind out there, so conditions are a bit slow,' Murtagh told Worldrowing.com.
'I was just trying to lock into that rhythm in the middle and get myself going again. Conditions were flat, but looking forward to tomorrow and stepping on again.'
Alison Bergin could only finish sixth in the same heat. Repechages have been replaced by a next-best-time system of progression and the Fermoy woman missed out on her chance of staying in the hunt for a medal place and will compete in the D Final.
Siobhán McCrohan won her heat of the lightweight single. The 37-year-old took gold and bronze in the last two World Championships.
But she was fifth and last early in this race as Valeria Palacios of Peru set a hot pace. If there was a worry that McCrohan's old failing of leaving it too late to sprint was recurring, it was unfounded.
She moved through the field, took the lead just after the 1500 metres mark and held it from there.
The Ireland women's double of Zoe Hyde and Mags Cremen qualified for the semi-finals. They placed third in a fine race and just missed out on a guaranteed place, but made it through because their time was one of the fastest.
Britain looked on course to win but the Greece-Ireland battle for the vital second spot was so hot that Greece beat Britain on the line, with Ireland just behind them.
The women's four and the men's quadruple came in at the back of their heats and go directly to B Finals.
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