ROWING/News: The Irish Olympic team leaves its base in Zagreb for the Olympic Village in Athens on Monday and will gain its first experience of the Schinias course the following day.

Preparations have gone well, according to team manager Richard Parr. "It's been really good here. We're quite pleased," he said yesterday.

While the lightweight four will be billeted in the Olympic Village, the lightweight double of Sam Lynch and Gearóid Towey will have their own independent base during competition.

The intense focus on Lynch and Towey as medal contenders is understandable: both have been world champions in different disciplines and last year they showed themselves to be among the elite in the lightweight double by taking World Championships bronze.

However, the four could be the classic dark horses. Since Niall O'Toole joined Richard Archibald, Eugene Coakley and Paul Griffin in the crew they have finished second and fourth in World Cup finals in Munich and Lucerne respectively.

They were not pleased with their row in Lucerne, but their work since then has been going well. As O'Toole, himself a former world champion, puts it: "We're at the other side of the learning curve now."

The coach of the Greek rowing team, Ireland's John Holland, is in no doubt that they are the real deal.

"I think they are well on course for a medal. If they row to the standard they produced in Munich they are real contenders."

Holland will coach the Greek lightweight men's double at Schinias, and was recently given the boost of a second crew. Under the "host country clause", the International Olympic Committee has allowed the Greek lightweight women's double to also take part.

This crew finished last in the final of the Olympic qualifier - 20 seconds behind fourth-placed Ireland - and Holland says a semi-final place at Schinias would be a good achievement.

Elsewhere, the world under-23 championships have been the jump-off point for some of Ireland's best rowers - Towey is a former world champion at this level and an early version of the lightweight four announced their arrival at the event.

Ireland have two crews in action in this year's championships, which begin in Poznan in Poland today. Eugene Coakley's younger brother, Richard, is joined in the lightweight four by Rob Cronin, Dave Mannion and Ciarán Hayes, while Dermot O'Sullivan and Stuart King make up the lightweight pair.

Meanwhile, Joanne Moran has been forced to withdraw from next's month's World University Championships because of work commitments.