Results a bad omen for Sydney

"From an Olympic point of view we had very bad results," was the forthright opinion of Mick Desmond, one of the Irish coaches, after the finish of the World Cup regatta at Hazewinkel in Belgium yesterday.

The results from the weekend unfortunately backed up the gloomy assessment. One of the key aims of the year for Irish rowing will be to pre-qualify a men's lightweight double scull for Sydney next year with a good performance in the World Championships. But the omens look bad: the double of Niall O'Toole and Gearoid Towey, which would have carried many hopes, finished last in the repechage on Friday. In an effort to remedy the situation, eight of the top lightweight scullers will spend the bulk of the three weeks between now and the second World Cup regatta in Vienna training on the Hazewinkel course. The national champion, Sam Lynch of St Michael's, who unfortunately could not compete in the World Cup event because of tendinitis, is heading for Sweden to train.

Emmet O'Brien and Donal McGuinness, competing in the lightweight pair, did perform creditably by finishing fifth in the A final yesterday, although this is not an Olympic boat and so failed to bring the country any World Cup points.

Similarly, Albert Maher's fifth placing in the B final in the heavyweight single sculls does not qualify the Corkman for points. Maher actually led early in yesterday's final but had faded to second by the 1,000 metres stage and then slipped out of contention in a race won by America's Jamie Koven, whose presence in the B final at least suggested that he might not have been taking the whole event deadly seriously.

The regatta proved every bit as disappointing for Irish women competitors as for the men, with poor showings by all six scullers in the two lightweight and one heavyweight double. The lightweight women put together a quadruple scull yesterday which finished second to China, and the men came home first in a quad race against Guatemala, but both races were essentially meaningless.