Archive News
Lightning Strike Disrupts Folan’s ‘B’ Final
Date Published: 15-Aug-2008
CORMAC Folan’s heavyweight four appearance in the Olympic Rowing ‘B’ Final was yesterday postponed for 24 hours due to thunder and lightning in the area of the Shunyi Canoeing-Rowing Park in Beijing.
The race was instead rescheduled to take place today at 6.10am GMT. Today had been designated as a rest day before the Olympic finals on Saturday and Sunday. Ireland’s lightweight four will be hoping to better their heavyweight counterparts’ result when they compete in their semi-final, which was also deferred until today.
The heavyweight crew of Cormac Folan, Sean Casey, Jonno Devlin and Sean O’Neill will have their work cut out for them to make an impression against a very strong field.
Irish team manager Mike Heskin: “It is extraordinary that they will be joined by the world gold, silver and bronze medallists New Zealand, Italy and Holland. All three have come here with huge expectations.
“I was talking to one of my colleagues from Italy and this is like a natural disaster for them,” he said.
Heskin believes the Irish crew lost their semi-final in the first…