Ross Corrigan and Nathan Timoney missed out on a medal in the men's pair after a sixth-place finish in the final at Paris 2024..
The Enniskillen Rowing Club duo were the first of three Irish crews in medal race action but finished 6.83 seconds behind gold medallists Croatia, crewed by the Sinkovic brothers.
Great Britain took silver and bronze went to Switzerland.
Starting in lane six, Ireland were third after the first 500m behind Great Britain and Romania, before dropping back to fifth at halfway.
They remained there at the 1500m mark but slipped back to sixth by the finish line.
Timoney said: "It wasn't the race we wanted, it wasn’t really a replication of the semi-final or the heats. We struggled to find the finesse out there today, we struggled to find the step up, that extra gear.
"It’s a tough pill to swallow but certainly a lot of lessons we can take from it. It doesn’t stop here. We’ll move forward, we’ll go home and think about it and reflect.
"We’re quite young, we’re racing people like the Grecians who are exceptional athletes, almost twice our ages and we look up to those guys and even being in the mix, to race against those lads, it’s incredible and something we can take away from it."
Corrigan added: "Sometimes you go out with all the intent in the world but rowing’s one of those sports where it’s not brute force and it’s not art either, it’s a mixture in between and it’s a fine balance. If we were leading the race we might have said that was an amazing race and the best we could have produced but I think, we probably thought we’d get the jump on a few boys off the start like we did last year and lead to the 500m but we kind of got caught off-guard at the start.
"So many positives to take from it. We’re both pushing on for LA anyway and we’ll see what happens... we’re delighted to be part of such a high standard team who push for medals because that’s the main thing."
Margaret Cremen and Aoife Casey also missed out on a medal in the women's lightweight double sculls final after a fifth-place finish. In lane one, the duo from Cork were fifth at the 500m mark and remained there going into the final 500m.
They eventually finished 7.52 seconds off first place and ahead of the USA. Great Britain won gold, with Romania and Greece taking silver and bronze respectively.
Cremen said: "I suppose making the final was such a big goal for us but then when you're in the final, the expectations of yourselves gets more and more. We definitely did our best every single stroke and really proud of our result."
Aoife Casey added: "It’s just such a cruel sport that way that you’re so close but you’re so far when the buzzer goes. But we’re so proud of how far we’ve come and all the training we’ve done and that we were able to put out such a good performance today, even though we’re not coming away with a medal. We’re coming away with such good memories for life."
Earlier, Aifric Keogh and Fiona Murtagh (above) finished second in the B final of the women’s pair. The duo were part of the women’s four crew that won bronze at Tokyo 2020.
In an impressive second half, the Irish pair surged past the Chilean crew and closed the gap on the leading Spanish double.
Despite their strong finish and rapid gain on the leaders, they crossed the line in second place, just a length shy of first.
However, there was joy for Ireland on Friday as Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy claimed back-to-back gold medals in the men’s lightweight double sculls.
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