"It will be tough - but that's what we want," says coach John Holland on why his Neptune lightweight four will take part in the heavyweight races in this weekend's international regatta in Cologne.

Holland and the crew will be able to judge their progress against the very best - the Danish lightweight four, reigning world and Olympic champions, will also move up to take on the heavyweights. There will be semi-finals and a final on the Saturday and a separate event, with just a straight final, on the Sunday.

Minor injuries, stomach bugs and bad weather have hampered the Neptune crew's training in recent weeks, and Holland has adjusted his expectations accordingly. "If we are close to them (the Danes) - say within three seconds - we will be extremely pleased. If we beat them we will be over the moon," he says.

The Neptune crew has three of the four oarsmen who competed for Ireland in the Olympic Games in 1996, finishing fourth in the final: Neville Maxwell, Tony O'Connor and Derek Holland, and they are joined by Brendan Dolan.

Gearoid Towey, another international-class Irish oarsman, is also setting his targets for the month ahead. The 21-year-old single sculler from Cork will take part in the World Cup regatta in Munich at the end of this month, despite the fact that there will be no official Irish representation. The Irish Amateur Rowing Union will not be financing a team to this regatta, the first in the three-leg World Cup, but Towey wants to take on the best - in this case reigning world lightweight champion, Kersten Nielsen of Denmark - at the earliest opportunity, and will finance himself.

Towey has been single-minded in his pursuit of excellence. He has moved to England and become a member to one of the top clubs in the world, Leander. The world under-23 champion in 1996, Towey suffered indifferent form last year, and felt the need "to try something different".

Now, under coach Martin Kay, he finds that the regime suits him, with training or competition every day and a strong emphasis on quality rather than quantity in the work.

The change certainly seems to be paying off. At the Ghent spring regatta early last month he surprised himself by winning the heavyweight and lightweight single sculls, beating the gold medallist in the double sculls in last year's World Championships, Stephane Volkert, in the process. He had also impressed club members with a win in the British trials in February.

Towey, who has already decided not to take part in the world under23 championships this year, says he will remain in England at least to the end of the summer - he is taking a course in sports management - but in the longer term the fact that there will be no lightweight single sculls in Sydney 2000 means he will probably team up with another sculler to form a double.

In the meantime there are the World Cup regattas and the World Championships in September. And the quiet-spoken athlete, who has been confirmed as our first-choice single sculler by National Director of Coaching Thor Nilsen, might just be a big noise by then.