Team Ireland

Men's Lightweight Coxless Four

Tony O'Connor (stroke)

Age: 29. Club: Neptune

His importance to this crew was underlined when, in his absence due to injury this season, the four's form deteriorated markedly. His highly-successful partnership with Neville Maxwell has yielded two silver medals and a bronze in World Championships. Still rates competing in Irish National Championships highly. "After all the four Danes (this crew's main rivals) will never win an Irish championship," he says.

Brendan Dolan (2)

Age: 32. Club: Neptune.

He won a bronze medal in the quadruple scull last year in Aiguebelette, and might well have been in this year's quad had things worked out differently. A member of the Garda Siochana, he has a good balance in his listed hobbies - English literature and hurling.

Neville Maxwell (3)

Age: 28. Club: Neptune.

Holder of a record 15 national senior titles, to add to his two silver and one bronze World Championship medal. The affable Galwayman has balanced being virtually a full-time athlete with a career as a trainee tax consultant ("still") with a top international firm.

Derek Holland (bow)

Age: 24. Club: Neptune.

With nine national senior titles at only 24, he will probably pass out the record holder - team-mate Neville Maxell - in time if he stays injury free. A member of the crew which just missed out on an Olympic bronze medal, finishing fourth in the final of the lightweight four at Atlanta.

Men's Lightweight Quadruple

Scull

Niall O'Toole (Stroke)

Age: 28. Club: Commercial, Dublin.

Won Ireland's only gold medal at a World Championships, as a single sculler in 1991 in Vienna. The Dubliner has been unlucky with illness and injury, but reported to be in top form again. Has recently been moved into the crucial role of stroke.

Owen Byrne (2)

Age: 18. Club: Commercial.

His tender years belie a tough competitor, who stroked this boat until a recent change. He has been given the job of steering the boat by coach Mick Desmond. He was part of the Irish quad which made the final of the World Junior Championships last year.

Neal Byrne (3)

Age: 22. Club: Commercial.

Part of the quad which won bronze at the World Championships in Aiguebelette in France last year, he has been called the "brains in the boat", and will call the tactics on the day. He certainly will be hard to miss - he recently turned bleach blond.

Gearoid Towey (bow)

Age: 21. Club: Fermoy (and Leander, England).

World under-23 champion as a single sculler in 1996, `Gags' had a bad 1997, but showed his dedication by heading for England, where he joined the famous Leander club. He started out the season as a single sculler, and surprised many by accepting Mick Desmond's suggestion of trialling for this crew, in which he eventually replaced Emmet O'Brien.

Women's Lightweight Quadruple

Scull

Audrey Phelan (stroke)

Age: 28. Club: Commercial.

The former UCD sculler joined Commercial this year as the club became the focus for elite sculling. She won the intermediate single sculling title this year, beating clubmate Vanessa Lawrenson into second place. A civil engineer, with Thurles roots, she competed as a sweep rower as part of a lightweight four which finished fourth in Lucerne in 1996.

Helen Dixon (2)

Age: 28. Club: Commercial.

The only long-term member of Commercial in this quad, although she was born in Athlone. With the other members of this crew she won the women's eights title for Commercial this year - the first eights title the club has ever won.

Meadhbh Terry (3)

Age: 26. Club: Commercial.

Like Audrey Phelan, she was a wellknown UCD oarswoman, and joined Commercial this year. The breakthrough for the crew came at the Copenhagen regatta, where national director of coaching Thor Nilsen gauged them good enough to travel as a "development" crew.

Ailish Houlihan (bow)

Age: 28. Club: Commercial.

The Kilkenny-born nurse moved to Commercial this year, and was part of the crew which took the senior eights title for the club. Also involved in a win for Castleconnell.

Men's Lightweight Double

Scull

John Armstrong (stroke)

Age: 36. Club: Lady Victoria, Belfast.

One of the true stalwarts of Irish rowing, he has a phenomenal record in National Championships, and won bronze as part of the Irish lightweight quad at the World Championships in France last year, and a single sculler at the Commonwealth Games in London in 1994. Seen by many as unlucky not to be part of the quad again this year.

Eugene Coakley (bow)

Age: 19. Club: Skibbereen, Cork.

The student of Civil Engineering will be 21 at the time of the Sydney Olympics and will benefit from the experience of his teammate in these championships. He lists his hobbies as "socialising".

Men's Lightweight Single

Scull

Sam Lynch

Age: 22. Club: St Michael's.

An up-and-down couple of seasons ended joyfully for the Limerickman with a win in the National Championships and selection for the World Championships. He just missed out on a medal in the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996, and glandular fever robbed him of a chance of a World Championship medal in Strathclyde the same year.

Men's Open Single

Scull

Albert Maher

Age: 25. Club: Neptune.

Went all out to show his merit as a single sculler this year, but when he failed to be selected for the Lucerne World Cup regatta it seemed as this was not to be his year. However, a good showing in the Copenhagen regatta left the door open again.

Women's Lightweight Single

Scull

Ruth Doyle

Age: 24. Club: Thames, London.

The former captain of Trinity (Dublin University Ladies' Boat Club) won the women's intermediate single sculls in her first year as a single sculler last year. She now combines a career as a trainee solicitor in London with sculling, and feels she is competing well at her new club, Thames.