And so, here it comes. The biggest World Rowing Championships ever begin on Sunday, seven days later, Ireland could have four boats qualified for the Olympic Games - or none at all.
The first scenario is very unlikely: all the crews, excepting single sculler Sanita Puspure, have been formed this season and, in an Ireland campaign already thinned down because of financial restrictions, their results have been mixed.
Puspure will qualify the boat if she finishes in the top nine. If she takes a good hand into the competition - and she does - the women’s double of Lisa Dilleen and Helen Hannigan hold a set of wild cards.
Dilleen, who is 24, was a gifted junior and during last winter was setting ergometer (rowing machine) marks that almost rivalled Puspure's best. But tonsilitis hit in March, and the partnership with Hannigan was also stymied by the latter's back problems. They finished second last (14th) at the European Championships in May, but then pushed for a new coach, and under the guidance of Italian coach Giuseppe De Capua, they upped their ranking to 11th at the World Cup in Lucerne in July.
It is exactly the cut off point if they are to book a place for the boat in Rio, but Dilleen is thinking beyond aiming for specific places.
“Our goal is to do the best we can; just to row the way we have been working with Pepe. We have to be goal-driven, thinking about each race, rather than the final outcome. If that yields a top 11 place we will be delighted.”
De Capua, a world-renowned coach, has them on the water virtually every day: “I have a whole new idea of what rough water is,” Dilleen quips. The mix in the boat is also good. Dilleen talks of Hannigan, who is 34 but relatively inexperienced at international level, as “mature and wise”.
They are, frankly, a longshot - but they could come through.
The lightweight women’s double of Claire Lambe and Sinéad Jennings have a similar profile in some ways. The crew at the European Championships actually featured Lambe and Denise Walsh, while Jennings, who broke a rib early in the year, competed in the lightweight single. But the Donegal woman is a proven performer. A world champion in the lightweight single in 2001, she has a distinctive style and has not found a complementary partner since. But in Lambe it might just happen. Both sing the praises of coach Don McLachlan, and seventh place in Lucerne suggests they could finish in the top 11 in France.
In a recent interview, Gary O’Donovan described the chances of the men’s lightweight double of making the top 11 as “borderline”. It seems a reasonable assessment. The efficacy of brothers as a unit in a boat can be overplayed: Gary and his more feted brother are effectively a new, young crew (Gary is 22, Paul 21). Paul was fourth in the world in the lightweight single in 2014, but a more relevant statistic is that this crew was 14th at the recent World Cup in Lucerne. This class is phenomenally competitive: there are 33 entries, and if Ireland make the top 24 and qualify for the quarter-finals, then Wednesday will be D-Day: get into the top half and they are into the semi-finals - just one of those boats will miss out on a place for Rio.
Ireland’s three non-Olympic crews have a shot at medals. The lightweight pair of Mark O’Donovan and Shane O’Driscoll, and lightweight single sculler Denise Walsh have points to prove, while the women’s four are part of an entry of just five.
Pararower Karol Doherty can qualify his single scull for the Paralympics in 2016 with a top-eight placing.
