Rowing International selection regatta: Tim Harnedy and Heather Boyle, who both took big knocks in 2004, are firmly back in the frame after the first international selection regatta at the National Rowing Centre in Cork, which finished yesterday.
Harnedy (22) was teamed with Eugene Coakley yesterday in a lightweight double, and judged on the weighting system devised by national coach Harald Jahrling the two Skibbereen men were the winners on the day with 92 per cent.
The newly-teamed under-23 lightweight double of Rob Cronin and Richard Coakley were second (91.5 per cent) and a women's lightweight double of Boyle and Sinead Jennings were third (91.4 per cent).
Harnedy hoped to be part of the men's lightweight four for Athens last year - a boat he helped qualify - but was displaced by Niall O'Toole, while Boyle also failed to make the Olympics when Jennings and her missed out in the Olympic qualifiers. The Galway woman was not on the list of carded athletes this year.
The selection regatta, which was exemplary in its organisation and execution, featured small-boat finals (single sculls and pairs) on Saturday. Harnedy was an impressive third behind heavyweights Sean Casey and fast-finishing Sean Jacob, while Boyle gave Jennings a race in the women's single.
Boyle's performance in a new combination in the double yesterday pleased Jahrling. "We put Heather in the stroke seat and it was actually good," he said. The double is the only Olympic boat for lightweight women. While Jennings would like to compete in the World Championships this year in a single, Jahrling has gone on record to say that only a single sculler entirely dominant domestically should go to the World Championships.
Jahrling put together a men's lightweight four which also impressed. The two Mac Colgain brothers, Siaghal and Diarmaid, were teamed with Danny Meanley and David Wallace.
In Saturday's finals, the Mac Colgains tested the all-NUIG heavyweight pair of Alan Martin and Cormac Folan until half way, but the heavier pair pulled away into the headwind over the final stretch.
The final selection regatta, at the end of this month, will involve only those whom Jahrling feels have a chance of selection, and athletes will again initially have to prove themselves in small boats.
However, one crew which is already in the driving seat is the junior double scull of Paul O'Brien and Rory O'Connor. "They are definitely going to be the double because they are the best," the German said.
In the single sculls on Saturday O'Connor, from Daingean in Co Offaly, beat his fellow 17-year-old for the first time, but he is already training regularly with O'Brien under Jahrling at Blessington. His aim this year? "To go to the World Junior Championships in a double with Paul."
They may not be the only juniors with legitimate ambitions of international activity. Vincent Ruane and Matthew Carroll of St Joseph's, Galway, were emphatic winners of the pair on Saturday, and look set for one of the precious invitations to the next selection regatta.
