WHEN IT FINALLY arrived, Sinead Jennings could only look around in wonder.
Today, she gets the chance again, but the time for sight seeing has gone as an Olympic semi-final is the order of business today for the Letterkenny rower.
Jennings and her team-mate Claire Lambe go in this afternoon’s women’s lightweight double sculls at the Lagoa Stadium.
On Monday, Jennings and Lambe safely came through their heat, comfortably finishing second to advance straight into the semis.
[adrotate group=”76″]The Jennings-Lambe combination came home in 7 minutes and 10.91 seconds, the heat having been won by South Africa’s Kirsten McCann and Ursula Grobler in 7:7.37 seconds
For Jennings, Monday was a day that had been 16 years in the making. She’d tried with all her might to reach the last three Olympiad and her chance looked gone.
Her first venture into the waters of Rio was when her moment, finally at 39 years of age, arrived.
[adrotate group=”38″]“The first day, coming in here, was just incredible,” said Jennings.
“I remember I was looking down at the water, for the first time, then looking up and seeing Christ the Redeemer, over the skyscrapers and the mountains and I thought, ‘Wow’.”
Situated high on the peak of the Corcovado mountain, Christ The Redeemer is one of the one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.
The surroundings today will not matter. For Jennings and Lambe, a place in the Olympic final is the only thing in their vision.
They had had to wait 24 hours later than planned to get underway with the heats, scheduled for Sunday, put back by 24 hours because of high winds.
Jennings was happy with their performance on Monday.
The Letterkenny woman said: “The South Africans got a really good start.
“So we had two options, to chase after them, or wait, and then the water got a bit rough, so if we chased after them, and something happened, that would be terrible. So we just consolidated second.”
The top three boats from the semi-finals advance to the final.
Providing opposition in the semi-final will be: German’s Ronja Sturm and Marie-Louise Drager; Denmark’s Anne Lolk Thomsen and Juliane Rasmussen; Dutch pair Ilse Paulis and Maaike Head; Canada’s Lindsady Jennerich and Patricia Obee; and American’s Devery Karz and Kathleen Bertko.
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