Pair pay their way to Olympic camp

ROWING: Garda's Kenny McDonald and Hugh Lynch of St Michael's will join the Irish Olympic camp in Seville, which begins next weekend, on a self-funding basis.

Both are lightweights, and McDonald has been pushing for entry to the international lightweight set-up for a while. He recently recorded an impressive ergometer score to add to his performance in last month's trial, but the erg score was submitted too late to win him automatic, fully-funded, selection.

Limerick man Lynch is the younger brother of Sam Lynch.

The two will join 21 others at the camp - the 14 elite lightweight men, four lightweight women (Heather Boyle, Fiola Foley, Níamh Ní Chéilleachair and SiobháJacob), two heavyweight men (Seán Jacob and Seán Casey) and Sinéad Jennings, testing herself as a heavyweight sculler.

Boyle and Foley have excellent ergometer scores but did not do well in trials - Boyle actually crashed - and both have been cut some slack, according to Richard Parr, the national high performance director, "because they are such incredible athletes".

The propensity of the lightweight women to underperform in competition will have to be remedied, he added.

Parr says that any athlete apart from the elite lightweight men who wants to be part of the selection process must take part in supervised ergometer tests. This effectively rules out anyone who did not take part last month and does not take the only other opportunity offered next month.

Albert Maher, Ireland's top single sculler, was exam-tied last month but said yesterday he intended to do the ergometer tests next month and take part in the national trials in March. NUIG's heavyweight men will also come on board next month, according to coach Tom Tuohy.

Maher has pulled out of tomorrow's Muckross head of the river at the National Rowing Centre on Inniscarra Lake due to flu.

Muckross man Seán Casey, who will be participating in his first senior Irish international camp when he travels to Seville, looks a likely winner of the senior single scull tomorrow. Lightweight sculler Richard Coakley, who performed so brilliantly at Inniscarra in last month's trials, is another interesting entry.