"When things happen and everything goes your way then it is fine. If not . . ." National director of coaching Thor Nilsen was characteristically philosophical when asked yesterday whether it was wise to travel to a World Championship seeking an Olympic place with a crew (the lightweight double scull) which had come together only a month before.

Nilsen's comments will probably be repeated in one form or another during the wider debate over the coming weeks as to whether it was wise for the Irish team to concentrate so much in last week's World Championships in St Catharines, Canada, on events which could not yield Olympic qualification spots.

The stark position now is that Ireland has no guaranteed entry for the rowing events in Sydney.

Our medal winners, the men's lightweight pair and lightweight quadruple scull, were in non-Olympic events - as was lightweight single sculler Sam Lynch; the aforementioned lightweight double of Niall O'Toole and Derek Holland missed out an Olympic place by .32 of a second, and our two other entries in Olympic events, men's single sculler Albert Maher and the women's double scull, were always long shots and missed out.

Nilsen's contention is that the Irish had very little luck and he is proud of the team's performance: in the case of the lightweight double he points out that the weed on the course which was complained of by a number of competitors may have hampered them.

The late formation of the crew, he also points out, came after attempts to form other doubles yielded no success - and Holland only became available after the lightweight four had broken up.

In the short term there will be much airing of views in rowing circles (there is an executive meeting tomorrow week, and the IARU a.g.m. is set for October 30th) on whether a lightweight four should have been sent to Canada.

Whatever the outcome the challenge now is clear: Irish boats will need to qualify in the first two places in the Lucerne regatta in early July (theoretically this can change but it is unlikely to) if we are to have any entries in Sydney.

The fact that the Olympics do not begin until mid-September (most likely September 17th for the rowing) at least means that the difficult task of peaking twice in the same season is eased somewhat.

The big question, of course, is who will be competing for those places, and in what boats.

An interesting sidelight on the World Championships: Ireland's two bronze medals gave them joint 18th in the medals table (with Russia and Argentina), joint eighth on medals totals alone. Britain's one gold (in the heavyweight men's four) and four silvers (three in men's events) put them seventh and eighth respectively in the two tables.