PHILIP DOYLE quietened talk of a hat-trick of wins after he and Daire Lynch reached an Olympic final.
The pair won their heat and followed that up by being the fastest crew in the Paris Games semi-final, in a time of 6:13.14.
Holland – the favourites to claim gold in Thursday’s final – won the other race in a time of 6:14.60.
And the Banbridge man is ready to take what comes having achieved the main objective of reaching a final, something which eluded him in Tokyo, when Ronan Byrne was his partner.
Doyle said: “It’s great to come away first across the line. At every competition we like to win at least one race.
“The lads always joked, ‘heat winner Phil Doyle, heat winner Daire’.
“It’s nice to be a heat winner and a semi-final winner. At the World Championships we didn’t win one race and we came away with a medal.
“It was just thinking that the other day. It’s nice to win two and come away with something in the end.
“My plan stops here, to be honest. In Tokyo I had notions of silverware and things and it didn’t go to plan so you reel back your expectations a little.
“I’ve always been fairly transparent that I want to make it to the medal final.
“And if we make it to the medal final that I’d have the confidence in us as a boat to perform, whatever our performance is whether it’s sixth or first, it’ll be our best.
“My plan stops now so I need to look to Daire and the team for what to do next, manage expectations and manage performance.”
The pair only came together last year and Lynch said: “We knew we were in a good position coming in but before the Worlds last year you don’t really know where other countries are going to be at.
“We got beaten in our heat. We didn’t win a single race but we’re showing good signs that we’ve timed it fairly well.
“The last block before we came here was probably our best one yet. Hopefully we can bring that into the final.”
Temperatures had already hit 32 degrees this morning but the duo explained that it was not so much the heat that was an issue.
But the previous cold and wet weather having tried to acclimatise to the heat in Italy.
Lynch said: “It was probably warmer in Varese, it’s just coming from more so how cold it’s been for the last few days.
“It’s a bit of a shock. Varese was very, very humid and worse than this. “
And Doyle added: “We had four weeks of increasing temperatures up to the mid-30s. Just a dead heat.
“No wind. From the heat to being in the cold, there were a few days when we were coming down with coats and jackets.
“The change is the hard part and to acclimatise to it. We’re well able for it, it’s just a change.”
They were third at the midway point and, although they were not concerned about that, they conceded it might be a different matter in the final.
CHEEKY CHAPS
Doyle said: “We knew there would be a couple of cheeky lads who would go off like the clappers at the start and sure we know if they go off like that and we’re not going slow,.
“So, same as the last race, if they’re going to go off and do silly things, they’ll pay for it later in the race.
“We just have to have the confidence that we are going to make them pay. We just need to watch now in the final, because obviously the six lads now in the final may not pay too hard in the second half.”
Theirs was the only one of three Irish boats to progress with the women’s double sculls of Alison Bergin and Zoe Hyde coming fifth in their semi-final.
And the four of Emily Hegarty, Eimear Lambe, Natalie Long and Imogen Magner fourth in their repechage.
The men and women’s pairs and the men’s lightweight double sculls are all in semi-final action on Wednesday.