Jahrling's call answered as trio join heavyweights

ROWING:The traditionally quiet months of autumn are anything but this year. New athletes - including a British team member - are coming from abroad to join the heavyweight programme; a new lightweight coach is set to be appointed, and tomorrow's meeting of the board of the Irish Amateur Rowing Union may sweep a new broom through key sub-committees.

Preparation for the international season begins with regional time trials next weekend. Three weeks later (October 25th-28th) there will be a senior heavyweight camp at the National Rowing Centre at Inniscarra Lake, Cork, where three of the invitees are surprise inclusions.

Jonno Devlin, Bruce Magee and Serryth Colbert join the athletes who qualified the four for Beijing and four other Irish-based rowers. Seán Jacob will concentrate on trying to qualify his single scull for Beijing.

Devlin (31) is the stand-out name. He was part of the British heavyweight eight from 2001 through the first two World Cups of this year, and took silver at the World Championships in Milan in 2003. The crew finished ninth at the Athens Olympics in 2004.

He was born in South Africa, and competed for his native country at the World Junior Championships in 1993, before coming to study and row at Oxford. His brother, Kevin, studied at Trinity and rowed with the college's senior eight.

The Oxford link is also strong with Magee (27) and Colbert (33). Magee was born in New Zealand, but when he was chosen for the 2006 Boat Race squad he listed himself as New Zealand/Irish. He also played professional rugby, and was good enough, according to this biography, to get one run with the All Blacks. Colbert is a native-born Galway man but has been based in Britain, where he has been an outstanding club rower with Oxford and Leander.

Head coach Harald Jahrling has had contact with him and Magee for a number of months and has put out a general call to those with Irish passports who "feel that they are up to it" to come into the system.

There are a number of applicants for the post of lightweight coach. A serious contender will be John Holland, who was involved with the national team from 1981 to 1988 and 1991 to 1999, and coached the Ireland lightweight four which was just over a second outside a medal at the 1996 Olympics. In 2004 he guided the Greek lightweight double to a bronze medal in Athens.

Tomorrow's first meeting of the new board of the IARU may decide on the panel to interview candidates for this position. Of longer-term interest will be the appointment of chairman for the sub-committees of the board, and the defining of their roles.

The Cork Sculling Ladder time trials will be run on Sunday at the Marina from 8.30am, and the new rowing tour gets its first outing from Carrick-on-Shannon tomorrow.

NATIONAL SENIOR HEAVYWEIGHT CAMP (Inniscarra Lake, Cork, October 25th-28th). Invitees: A Martin, S Casey, C Folan, S O'Neill, P Murray, J Wall, P O'Brien, C Collis, B Magee, S Colbert, J Devlin.