ROWING: St Michael's of Limerick, victors in their own impressive head of the river last weekend, pit themselves against the capital's finest at the Dublin Head of the River tomorrow.
The western club have been growing in recent years and are able to put two senior eights on the water, where they will take on Neptune A and B, Trinity and Commercial in the time trial event. The start is from the Marlborough Steps, just east of O'Connell Bridge, at 3.15.
The junior eight of Coláiste Iognaid of Galway, another power apparently on the rise, will be given an indicator of their strength when they take on crews from Commercial and Neptune.
The women's senior eight has the big three on the Dublin scene in UCD, Trinity and Neptune.
The Lagan Scullers' Head of the River, with an entry almost entirely from north of the Border, goes head to head with the Dublin event, which will have Ciarán Lewis as race marshal.
Lewis's partner in the Atlantic Rowing Race, Gearóid Towey, is now back on course to join the international athletes training at Blessington this weekend.
The Corkman submitted an ergometer (rowing machine) test to coach Harald Jahrling, who says he is pleased to welcome the former world champion into his weekend training regime.
"We're very happy to have him on board. He's a good athlete and we're happy to have good athletes," said Jahrling yesterday.
The German has just returned from a training camp in Switzerland with some of the elite athletes, and thinks the work done will stand to them as the season goes on.
Back in Ireland, the tranche of ergometer tests completed recently at clubs across the country will not be publicised. Jahrling sees them as aids for the athletes as they face into the cutting-edge business of the trials process, which picks up speed this month: the first national time trial of the season is in Inniscarra Lake in Cork in three weeks.
The venue for the National Rowing Centre will be busy this year, as building work is set to start again this month.
Initial projections were that work on the main building would be complete for the National Championships in mid July, but Mick O'Callaghan, who oversees the development, now says it will be "about November" before it will be finished.
In the longer term the full development of the course, with "all the facilities in place for an international regatta", should be complete for the staging of the Coupe de la Jeunesse, a western European junior championships, in 2008.
