Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy led the medal charge for Ireland with another gold at the World Cup regatta in Lucerne yesterday. But a shock defeat for Sanita Puspure in the women’s singles left the double world champion with plenty of work before the Tokyo Olympics.

After a characteristically slow start in the lightweight men’s doubles, O’Donovan and McCarthy used the second quarter to their advantage, moving into second place after 750m before overhauling Italy to take the lead by halfway.

A clear water advantage for Ireland after 1,500m left Germany and Norway challenging the Italians for silver.

But inside the last 250 metres O’Donovan upped the rate to 43 for the win, as Kristoffer Brun and Are Strandli came through to grab silver for Norway ahead of third-placed Germany.

Austria’s Magdalen Lobnig and Great Britain’s Vicky Thornley were the early race leaders in the final of the women’s single sculls, where Puspure placed fourth through the early stages.

But Hanna Prakhatsen, the new Russian star, made her presence felt in the second quarter and took over the lead after 800 metres, and never let go.

Puspure overhauled Lobnig at halfway and then attacked Kara Kohler, the second-placed USA sculler, but the American fought back to regain silver behind gold for Prakhatsen, leaving Puspure with bronze.

The men’s double sculls result was a carbon copy of the world championships of two years ago in Austria where Ronan Byrne and Philip Doyle had to settle for silver behind the Chinese duo.

Determined to reverse that result Byrne and Doyle used the second quarter to good effect and grabbed the lead from Switzerland, but China’s Liu Zhiyu and Zhang Liang came back hard.

Inside the last 250m the lead changed hands with every stroke, but the Chinese duo took it on the line by just 0.14 of a second.

There was another silver for Ireland in the women’s pairs where Aileen Crowley and Monika Dukarska came storming past Romania for the silver medal behind Spain.

Tara Hanlon and Claire Feerick had also qualified for the final after Saturday’s repechage and finished in fifth place.

Yesterday’s haul, plus another silver on Saturday for Lydia Heaphy in the lightweight women’s singles placed Ireland fifth in the medal table at Lucerne, behind chart toppers Great Britain but ahead of bigger rowing nations such as Germany, Russia and Spain.