Ireland's McCarthy and Pazzaia win bronze at European Rowing Championships
IRELAND'S FINTAN MCCARTHY and Konan Pazzaia won bronze in the men's double sculls at the European Rowing Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
Double Olympic lightweight champion McCarthy, making his debut in the heavyweight class, added yet another European medal to his glittering CV on Saturday morning.
With Pazzaia taking the place of McCarthy's regular partner Paul O'Donovan, the Irish crew finished third (6:05.48) behind Poland's Miroslaw Zietarski and Mateusz Biskup (6:02.93) and reigning Olympic and European champions Andrei Cornea and Florian Enache of Romania (6:03.87).
Earlier on Saturday, three Irish boats were just edged out of the medals as they finished an agonising fourth in their respective A finals.
Izzy Clements, Jake McCarthy, and Zoe Hyde and Mags Cremens all came up empty-handed after a string of fourth-place finishes.
Clements, 21, had already impressed on her senior Irish debut in the lightweight women's single sculls by qualifying for the final with the second-fastest time overall.
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The Scottish-born rower made a strong start to Saturday morning's final and sat second at the half-way mark behind Austria's Lara Tiefenthaler.
But Clements started to fade in the back half of the race and quickly came under pressure from Norway's Maia Lund and Mariia Zhovner, competing under the flag of the Independent Neutral Athletes.
Tiefenthaler pulled clear to win gold in 7:29.38, with Lund (7:31.76) just shading Zhovner (7:31.79) for silver by three-hundredths of a second. Clements finished two seconds further back in fourth in a time of 7:34.29.
Jake McCarthy — twin brother of Fintan — came up just short despite a late push in the men's lightweight single sculls final.
Pre-race favourite Fabio Kress held on for gold (6:51.24) as Turkey's Halil Kaan Koroglu (6:51.63) closed on him in the final strokes. Bronze went to Mikita Karneyeu of the Independent Neutral Athletes (7:00.23) with McCarthy a second adrift in fourth (7:01.45).
In the women's double sculls, Hyde and Cremen (6:55.73) finished fourth behind new European champions Roos de Jong and Tessa Dullemans of the Netherlands (6:48.83).
Dimitra Kontou and Zoi Fitsou of Greece were squeezed out of a tight finish into silver (6:49.11), with Andrada-Maria Morosanu and Mariana-Laura Dumitru of Romania taking bronze (6:51.96) ahead of Hyde and Cremen.
Ireland will have one more shot at a medal on Sunday when Tokyo Olympic bronze medallist Fiona Murtagh goes in the A final of the women's single sculls (10.13am).
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