Irish chase medals and tickets to Athens

Rowing: The Ireland team arrived in Milan yesterday for the World Championships which begin on Sunday with medals on their mind - both at this event and at Athens next year.

Qualification places for next year's Olympic Games can be secured in the championships for three of Ireland's six boats. The men's lightweight double and lightweight four will qualify the boat if they finish in the top 11 in Milan, while the women's lightweight double need to finish ninth or better.

For the men's double, qualification may come via a medal. The crew is made up of two-time lightweight single sculls champion Sam Lynch (27) and Gearóid Towey (26), who won gold in the lightweight pair in 2001.

Having opted for the Olympic-class boat, they competed in their first event as a crew at the World Cup regatta in Lucerne, reaching the final and finishing fourth in a race won by a street by the sensation of that regatta, Italy's Elia Luini and Leonardo Pettinari.

The Italians are the world record holders (six minutes 10.8 seconds, set at last year's World Championships) and are attempting to take their third World title in-a-row - in front of a home crowd.

Pettinari threw down the challenge to their rivals after the remarkable win in Lucerne, when he told The Irish Times they were targeting the world record again: "I think it is possible to do six minutes nine in Milan. This is an aim."

Whether the Irish, even if they find their best form, can beat the home crew will be one of the big questions over the next week. And it will hardly be a two-horse race: with 28 crews entered - each country is allowed only one entry in each class - this is one of the strongest of all the events.

Ireland's other big hope of a medal will be lightweight single sculler Heather Boyle (27). The Galway woman is first into action on Sunday morning - the heats are scheduled from 9.40 to 9.55 - and will be hoping to match or better her performance at Lucerne, where she took silver.

The form of the women's lightweight double is less easy to chart and Ireland's primary aim will be to gain Olympic qualification. Sinéad Jennings (tendinitis) and Fiola Foley (recovering from a bicycle accident) have had to take it easy in the approach to this regatta, but sometimes a light training regime benefits athletes and both were reportedly fit and eager for action yesterday evening.

This is another of the Olympic events with a big entry (23).

The men's lightweight four could be the dark horses for the Irish. The Ireland four finished ninth in Lucerne, but Skibbereen's Eugene Coakley (24) and Tim Harnedy (21), who competed as a lightweight double at that regatta, come in for Niall O'Toole and Derek Holland. So the crew, which is completed by Paul Griffin (23) and Richard Archibald (25) is effectively a new one.

In the World Championships in Seville last year Ireland won the B final, effectively finishing seventh in the world. To better this would be an excellent achievement for this young crew.

Holland, at 29 the oldest of the Irish team, teams up with 22-year-old Neil Casey in a lightweight pair, while to Limerick's Brian Young (24) falls the difficult task of stepping into the shoes of Sam Lynch as Ireland's lightweight single sculler at the championships.

Young follows Boyle into action in the heats on Sunday (10 a.m. to 10.30), while the other four boats compete for the first time on Monday morning. The pair's heats are scheduled for 9.44 and 9.51, with the two doubles and the four scheduled to compete between 10.30 and 12.05.