Jacob set to appeal Olympic heave-ho

ROWING: SEÁN JACOB, who was cut from the Ireland squad after last weekend's World Cup regatta in Munich, was last night set to appeal the decision to the board of the Irish Amateur Rowing Union.

The International Rowing Committee decided on Wednesday night that Jacob, along with the heavyweight and lightweight women's double, would not go forward to the Olympic Qualifier.

The big Dubliner finished 13th in the world last year, just two places away from an automatic place for Beijing. He was targeting one of the three places available at the qualifier in Poznan in Poland, but struggled with injury and illness in the run-up to Munich, where he finished 24th.

His coach, Harald Jahrling, said in advance of the regatta that Jacob was recovering from illness and could not be back to his best. But come Sunday, when team manager Mike Heskin met with Jahrling, the decision was made to recommend that Jacob not be sent on to the next World Cup in Lucerne nor to the Olympic Qualifier.

Heskin said yesterday that even taking account of Jacob's difficulties in the run-up to Munich, there were 11 non-qualifiers ahead of him in Munich and there was "a huge time deficit involved".

Jacob is expected to argue that he was given no criteria in advance of this regatta as to what was an acceptable performance, but Heskin said the criteria was the performance against the opposition. "Given the gulf, the question was: "Can simple training do the job? The conclusion of the coaches was it wasn't going to solve the problem. Across all three boats."

The Ireland lightweight women's double finished 18th and the women's double 20th in Munich.

The IRC meeting decided that the top lightweight women will now be asked to trial for a place in the lightweight single scull this day fortnight (May 30th) at Blessington, with the target of sending this crew to the World Championships for non-Olympic events in Austria in late July.

The same trial will serve as a testing ground for the creation of a lightweight women's quadruple scull. It could be sent to the Holland Beker regatta in Amsterdam in early July to test its viability.

Jacob, meanwhile, has remained in Jahrling's system - for the present. He will compete in the single scull at the Internationale Wedau Regatta in Duisburg this weekend. Three Ireland pairs are entered along with the four which finished 10th in Munich.