Lindsay-Flynn's big impact

ROWING:Up and down the country plans are being made by Irish supporters to make their way to Munich for the World Championships, which begin two weeks from Sunday. The team for the championships will be announced next week.

The fans' focus will be firmly on the Ireland team, but there might also be some justified cheering for a man from Meath who now wears a British vest.

James Lindsay-Fynn (31) is extraordinary in the degree to which he has roots in both of these islands. Reared in Trim, he went to school at Eton in England, then returned to college in Trinity. He won a national senior eights title in 2004 rowing with Dublin club Commercial.

He wore the green vest of Ireland with some distinction, and was part of the Ireland lightweight quadruple scull which took a bronze medal at the World Championships in 1999.

Lindsay-Fynn moved to London and settled there, and when he began rowing with the British team he juggled it with his demanding banking job.

The British lightweight programme had historically been almost laughably poor, but all that changed radically in 2005 with the arrival of former Cambridge University Boat Race coach Robin Williams. The ascent of the crews under him has been stunning - last month the lightweight four, with Lindsay-Fynn and Coleraine's Richard Chambers as the bow pair, won gold at the final World Cup in Lucerne.

"Hey, three Irishmen on the podium!" said Lindsay-Fynn, greeting The Irish Times as he waited to accept his medal in Lucerne - Alan Campbell, another Coleraine man, had just received his silver medal in the men's single scull.

The British experience has been mooted by those who feel the Ireland team, which has had some poor results this season, might benefit from a wider selection of coaches. Head coach Harald Jahrling said in Lucerne: "We've a need for coaches, professional coaches, in the country. At one time we had eight crews on the water for two coaches. That's impossible to do, to coach that many.

"We are doing too many different things. In all categories: heavyweight; lightweight; men; women. Single sculls to quads. The speed variety between all these is massive. Crews around here - it's one crew, one coach. That's the standard."

Jahrling added he was open to the idea of a lightweight coach.