Lightweight four can set gold standard

Rowing/World Championships: A lot rests on how the Irish rowing team does in the World Rowing Championships, which begin on Sunday at Eton in England: the dreams and hopes of the individual competitors, obviously, but also the firming up of the belief that Irish athletes, given the correct support from home, can take on and beat the world.

The past two Olympics were chastening for Irish sport, and rowers were vocal in their criticism of the sometimes amateurish structures afforded to them. Not any more. In the last year and a half, under new coach Harald Jahrling, rowing has been an exemplar.

There is a long road still to be trod, but elite rowers don't grumble now; they speak intensely of the benefit of their recent weeks at the high-altitude camp in St Moritz, of how every detail is dealt with by the backroom team, of the road to a medal in Beijing being through a process of improving every component of how they perform - and how this is achievable.

It is heady stuff. The results in World Cup regattas this season have been excellent, but the finals next Saturday and Sunday are the business end of the season, the proof of the pudding.

So, how will the Irish do? This column believes the lightweight four of Gearóid Towey, Eugene Coakley, Richard Archibald and Paul Griffin will win gold on Sunday week. They have the results - this season they won the World Cup series and beat each of their main rivals: Germany, Australia, Italy and world champions France. They also have the ambition and the right attitude.

Three years ago the lightweight four qualified for the Olympic Games, and stroke man Griffin talked of it being time to start winning things. They finished sixth in the Olympic final, rowing naively.

Last year, with Jahrling coming on board, they put that naivety behind them and took silver in the World Championships. This year, with Towey in the mix, they have kicked on again. And they talk of always having targeted the week ahead as the important part of their season.

"When we started off in the four, say at the beginning of the year, we set out the target as the World Championships. It was our big goal of the season. The World Cup (series) was, like, in between - something that we wanted to try and win. But I think, as a unit, that the World Championships was always our main aim. That's still the case," says Towey.

Of Ireland's five other crews, two have realistic ambitions of making their A finals. In the middle World Cup of the three, in Poznan in Poland, the new combination in the lightweight women's double, Niamh Ní Cheilleachair and Sinéad Jennings, made the big breakthrough by winning a bronze medal.

But Poznan was notable most of all for the phenomenal, record-breaking, performance of gold medallists Dongxiang Xu and Shimin Yan of China. This is the only Olympic event for lightweight women, and as the beat quickens in the march to the Beijing Games, their emergence has left observers seeing Eton as a dogfight between at least five other crews for the silver and bronze.

Reigning champions Germany, Finland, the USA, Poland, Canada and Ireland will first target making the final. As Jennings puts it, "The Chinese are really special. After that we're all there or thereabouts."

The men's four, a heavyweight crew, have also prioritised being among the top six first of all.

"We're good enough to make the A final. It's just a case of performing and making sure we're the best we can be on the day," says bowman Cormac Folan.

Thursday, their semi-final day, must be their time to shine.

Of Ireland's other three crews, the lightweight double of Richard Coakley and Tim Harnedy have more potential than they have shown so far and would hope to reach their semi-final.

Heavyweight single scullers Seán Jacob and Caroline Ryan have similar ambitions, in arguably the toughest events of all. They go into action in Sunday's heats, as does the heavyweight four. The other crews begin their campaigns on Monday.