Olympics deplete Henley Regatta

OLYMPIC commitments have left this year's Royal Henley Regatta relatively open with two crews from a large Irish entry being seeded in events that, because of rule changes, are likely to produce a number of upsets between today and Sunday's finals.

Neptune, whose strong performance in Dockland's last month, where they finished well in both open finals - ahead of the ranked London - has made the Dublin club one of the front-runners for the Thames Challenge Cup, an event held for non-international club eights. Of the four crews to be seeded though, Neptune have had the least race practice, with the destruction of their boat breaking up the two week competition cycle and forcing their absence at the recent Athlone Regatta.

However, they still will be favourites to go through from their first round race against the Wallingford `B' crew today. Their `A' crew pose the bigger threat with a couple of Oxford Blues sprinkled in among the eight to merit it's seeding. Wallingford and Nottingham, who have been cleared by the Stewards of poaching allegations, were the two main absentees from Docklands.

After an unsettled start to the season, Neptune again field a crew line-up unchanged since the Trinity regatta with Colm O'Rourke, a former Imperial oarsman, at stroke. Their coach Peter Buckley argues that the return to consistency has been in keeping with his initial plans.

"I would say that we have got noticably faster since Docklands. The whole season has been geared towards Henley and the National Championships from the start and the work we have been doing in the last couple of weeks has been about getting the stroke rate that bit higher while keeping the technique right. We've been doing short pieces here because of the conditions and we are just concentrating on getting the speed off the start now."

By contrast, Neptune's domestic adversary, has been experiencing a few lacklustre months. Nevertheless, Trinity are seeded in the Temple Challenge Cup having become a regular fixture as the losing finalist. To separate club from college, the Temple rules now ban all internationals, blues and former Henley winners, but the other four `selected' boats, London University, Yale, Princeton and the Dutch Nereus crew, will test Trinity's new confidence, instilled after making two open finals in Amsterdam ten days ago.

Then, the eight was pitched, against national crews from Australia, Holland and Italy. Tomorrow, they will face either Atlantic City or the Japanese Nihon University, who, says Trinity's number six Michael O'Connell, compensate for their stature by rating 65 down the course.

"We chopped and changed a bit in the last month, but looking around the other crews here we're quite positive. There has been a lot of sharpening up since the exams and we got some good race training in Amsterdam. We weren't out to win, but we beat Imperial by a length and a half," O'Connell added.

Trinity's second string in the Temple, their Senior 3 eight, is drawn against Dartmouth College today and a win would set up an All-Ireland clash with the waiting Queen's boat.

Gearoid Towey might not appreciate the irony of benefiting from the Olympic commitments of others, given the six months he has just spent in the Irish sculling squad, only to be left out of the Atlanta double at the last moment.

With more time to spend with his single scull though, Towey's chances in the Diamond Sculls have been raised by the late decision of the current holder and World Championship silver medallist, the Estonian, Juri Jaanson to withdraw.

Towey's recent form has been good, winning the Under-23 and senior lightweight sculls in Amsterdam, but according to his coach and father Jerry Towey, his main focus now is the under-23 Worlds in Hazewinkel next week where Neal Byrne also competes.