Canoeing: Ireland's sprint canoeists took one of the first steps on the long road to Beijing at the weekend when they had their first squad session of the new Olympic cycle.

This country's best hopes for Athens in this branch of canoeing - the other is the more familiar slalom canoeing - failed to make it to the Games. Brendan and Conor Maloney are among the best in Europe in the K2 500 class, but the strict criteria laid down by the International Canoe Federation for Olympic qualification stumped them.

"The qualification standard was extremely difficult," says Ireland team manager Tom Egan. "We would be critical of the standard set by the ICF."

Egan is hopeful there will be Irish representatives at the next Olympiad. "We have people coming through like Ciarán Fleming, Barry Watkins and Fergal Walshe as well as Jenny Egan. With the support funding of the Sports Council we are currently working to put together a strong coaching structure."

The Sports Council seems to be leading a move to appoint high performance directors in sports such as canoeing. This may see a situation where slalom and sprint canoeing would have a single HPD: coaches from both would report to the HPD, who would oversee a programme built towards producing the best results for Beijing. Egan stresses the need to give proper weight to the World and European Championships. "It's important for us to be getting rankings at World and European level."

Neil Fleming (20), broke the Irish K1 1000 record at the World under-23 Championships in Poznan in Poland this year. In the K4 200, Ireland's crew of Fleming, Adam Strevens, Peter Egan and Dave Pringle are ranked eighth in Europe.