Next year, the centenary of the Irish Amateur Rowing Union, this country will host the prestigious Coupe de la Jeunesse, an annual nine-nation European junior championship. So, much interest will centre on how well our representatives do in this year's event in Candia, Italy, this weekend.
Sebastian Peeters, the Irish manager, feels that the strongest chance of gold from a big Irish squad should come with the men's junior quadruple scull, which will be stroked by Niall Casey of Neptune and is otherwise an all-Skibbereen boat.
The standard of the women's events will be high, and the all-Offaly quad of Niamh Ni Cheallachair, Joan and Emer Moran and Siobhan Bermingham are our best hopes. The Copenhagen senior regatta tomorrow and Sunday is also a crucial one for the three Irish entries. The men's lightweight four, the women's lightweight quad and single sculler Albert Maher will test themselves against top-class opposition, and national coach Thor Nilsen, who will attend, will use the performances to decide on which crews will travel to the World Championships in Cologne in September.
The lightweight four will row tomorrow and Sunday in the heavyweight class, in which reigning World champions Denmark and two German heavyweight crews will provide the opposition. The performance against the Danes may be particularly informative for an Irish crew which pushed the Danes hard when they met them in the Cologne regatta in May but have had a season badly affected by Tony O'Connor's injury. Neptune sculler Maher is set to take on 14 others and the women's lightweight quad, all from Commercial, will face three other crews. Already certain of places for the World Championships are lightweight single sculler Sam Lynch and a men's lightweight quad. The latest news on the make-up of the quad is that in addition to Gearoid Towey, three others have now been asked to join in trials with the existing four next weekend to determine the best crew - John Armstrong of LVBC, Donal McGuinness of Commercial and Eugene Coakley of UCC. Meanwhile, Padraic Hussey of Offaly heads off tomorrow to compete in the World Junior Championships in Ottensheim in Austria, which begin on Wednesday.
