Changing of guard at top

ROWING:THE TWO big developments in rowing this week – the announcement of Sports Council grants and the second national assessment in Newry – paint a picture of a sport which has lost a swathe of its top athletes but has promising talent on the way up.

It is strange, to say the least, to see more canoeists carded (four) than rowers (two) – and all the stranger because both rowers are carded because of special circumstances.

Enniskillen’s Karen Cromie, an adaptive athlete, has come in from the British system, and Cathal Moynihan, an Olympian 18 months ago, was ill for much of 2009 and, according to Ireland performance director Martin McElroy, carried forward his status for that reason.

The lack of other carded athletes reflects a 2009 season when nearly all the rowers who competed in Beijing left the sport. At Newry on Sunday, it was remarkable that no senior heavyweight women and only two senior heavyweight men competed.

Against this background, the large increase in the grant for the international programme – from €425,000 to €550,000 for 2010 – suggests the Irish Sports Council believes something is going right.

In Newry, this impression was confirmed by the number of athletes who recorded personal bests – and most of them under 23.

The standout statistic is the group of five under-23 lightweight men achieving over 80 per cent of projected world-best time. Justin Ryan of UCC tops these, and his time of 20 minutes 35.5 seconds for the 5,000 metres was 19.5 seconds faster than the fastest heavyweight, Seán Jacob. But four other lightweights, Mark O’Donovan, Michael Maher, Niall Kenny and Peter Hanily, were all hot on Ryan’s heels.

Lisa Dilleen, who is still a teenager and is doing her Leaving Certificate this year, was the fastest woman on the day, hitting 80.9 per cent of world-best time for an under-23 woman.

Two under-23 lightweights, Claire Lambe and Sarah Dolan, were also above the 80 per cent mark, as was Siobhán McCrohan, who turns 23 this year.

One senior who might yet come into the reckoning is Martin Walsh of Neptune. The Dubliner has strong hopes of being in the Oxford crew for the Boat Race. The crews will be announced on Monday week, March 1st.

Athletes looking for competition look north again this weekend. The Lagan Head of the River tomorrow has a good line-up in the senior eights. The women’s test features UCD, Commercial and Trinity, while same three crews take on three Queen’s University crews in the men’s event.

In the Atlantic rowing race, Seán McGowan has been digging in but making painfully slow progress in difficult conditions. He has achieved his aim of getting south of 20 degrees latitude, but this hard graft has not registered as distance made good towards the finish line in Antigua.