ROWING News:The national selection regattas have been some of the best events in Ireland in the two years since coach Harald Jahrling came to these shores. This year's first trial of two begins at Inniscarra Lake in Cork today, with a big group of elite rowers at senior, under-23 and junior levels going head-to-head over the weekend to lay claim to places in the international squad for the season ahead.
The absence of Gearóid Towey this season means that from this regatta and the final selection regatta next month, a new lightweight men's four crew will have to be formed. Over the past two seasons this boat has won a silver and a bronze at World Championship level. Last year it also won the World Cup series.
The format is for heats in small boats beginning at 8.30 this morning, with finals for seniors and under-23 athletes this afternoon. Juniors - and there is a big entry - move on to finals tomorrow, while seniors move into the bigger boats tomorrow and Sunday, which will allow Jahrling to assess form for selection.
Speaking last evening in Cork, the German said he was pleased with the recent camp in St Cassien, and contrasted the good weather of the south of France with the gales blowing in Ireland.
There will also be an Irish interest in tomorrow's Head of the River in London. Belfast Rowing Club are on a roll, and last year their top eight made the semi-finals of the Thames Cup at Henley Royal Regatta. Their two crews in action tomorrow go off at 54 and 58.
Under Mark Pattison, Trinity's senior eight have also been putting some good form together. This season, they have won heads of the river at Erne and Lagan, and had an excellent win in the colours race, the Gannon Cup, over UCD. They go off at 71 in the race from Mortlake to Putney, with a good chance of being the top overseas college crew.
Further afield, another Irish coach may bag some glory tomorrow. Tony O'Connor, an Irish Olympian and a world champion in 2001, last year coached his Christ's College junior crew to a win in the prestigious Maadi Cup, the New Zealand schools' championships, and his junior 18 crew are back in the final. This is a huge regatta: with 1,992 competitors from 106 schools, it is one of the largest regattas in the Southern Hemisphere.
The most prestigious regatta of last year, the World Championships at Eton in England, got a big thumbs up from the athletes in an extensive survey by world governing body Fisa. Interestingly, the athletes were not as taken with the venue for the final World Cup, Lucerne, in Switzerland.
Other views expressed by the athletes: doubt over the timing of the European Championships (in September); a suggestion that television coverage of rowing should carry a small screen in the corner which would show the leading crew; an openness to running 500-metre races to garner more public interest.
