Heavy the way to go

Rowing News round-up: With propitious timing, four young men from NUIG proved on Saturday the top-class performances by Irish rowers need not always be by lightweights.

The Ireland coxless four of Alan Martin, Paul Giblin, Marc Stephens and Cormac Folan took silver at the World University Championships in Brive, France, giving a formidable Poland crew a real run for their money and having little difficulty relegating Britain to the bronze medals.

NUIG coach Tom Tuohy's crew were only slightly behind Poland at halfway, but could not make headway as the eventual winners moved away.

The stern pair of the Poland crew, Artur Rozalski and stroke Rafal Smolinksi, filled the same positions in the national four that finished sixth in the Olympic final last month.

Frank Durkin, the president of the Irish Amateur Rowing Union, said the Ireland performance proved high performance director Richard Parr was correct in his belief that Irish rowers can move forward with the aim of taking on the best at heavyweight level.

"Our heavyweights should get equal attention from now on," Durkin added.

Ireland's three other crews at the University Championships also performed creditably. The men's lightweight double of Diarmuid Mac Colgain and Danny O'Dowd, who were essentially a new crew, finished fourth in their A final, as did lightweight single sculler Niamh Ní Cheilleachair in hers.

Eimear Moran, who with her sister Joanne has a superb record in the heavyweight double scull this year, had to compete in the single as Joanne had to pull out due to work commitments. She finished second in the B final of the heavyweight single scull.

At the World Masters Regatta in Hamburg, Jaye Renehan of Old Collegians, who has been winning golds at this level since the 1980s, took four separate firsts - in coxed and coxless fours, coxless pair and the mixed eight.