Day two of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals in Antalya, Turkey, brought breezier and more challenging racing conditions for all competitors. By Saturday morning, the skies had brightened as racing resumed with the Mixed Coxed Quad taking to the water. 

The Mixed Coxed Quad got off to a fantastic start, with David Hussey leading the opening run strongly. Despite their determined effort, the crew were unable to match the pace of a fast German team in their repechage round. 

In the U19 Women’s Single, Isabella Monahan impressed in her time trial, finishing in 3:19.38, securing her place in the afternoon’s knockout stages. After a strong start in her head-to-head race, she took the outside line approaching the final buoy, which unfortunately allowed the German athlete to edge ahead. 

The U19 Men’s Double of Luke Nixon and Thomas Sheridan put in a strong showing but narrowly missed out on a place in the semifinals, finishing second in their quarterfinal. An issue with their seat mid-race hampered their challenge against the German favourites. 

There were also promising performances in Thursday and Friday’s time trials from Sophia Monahan (CW1x), Sean Harte (CJM1x), Sean Harte and Isabella Monahan (CJMix2x), Kate Dunne and Gabrielle O’Donoghue (CJW2x) and Donagh Claffey and Miriam Sheehan (CMix2x). Despite their best efforts and competitive times, the Rowing Ireland athletes were just shy of progression in highly competitive fields. 

As the competition concludes for Rowing Ireland, we congratulate all our athletes on their commitment, and exciting performances over the past few days of racing. 

Results

Speaking on the competition, Niall O’Carroll, Rowing Ireland’s Head of High Performance: 

“I am blown away by the quality of racing on show at the World Rowing Beach Sprints finals. Our young team performed heroically. I am so proud of every one of them. The standards set at these championships are higher than ever and we need to create structures in Ireland accordingly. 

I am excited to build a program worthy of the athletes we have on our island. Experiences like these are valuable steppingstones as the High-Performance Programme continues to build towards the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games.” 

Congratulations to all athletes and support staff on representing Rowing Ireland with pride at the 2025 World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals.