Low-key return for heroes

ROWING/World Championships: The Ireland rowing team which did so well at the World Rowing Championships in Eton flew back to Dublin Airport yesterday to a welcome from family members and media.

With a successful, if gruelling, season behind them and two weeks of complete freedom ahead, it would have been understandable if the athletes came through the double doors into the arrival hall showing signs of having already let the hair down. Not a bit of it. The all looked fresh and very smart.

Ireland coach Harald Jahrling is unbending in his belief that his team should reflect well on the country in all situations, and the group which emerged into public view yesterday were almost military in their bearing and presentation. The lightweight four walked through the doors first, with their bronze medals around their necks. Then it was the turn of the heavyweight four and the lightweight women's double, who had both won their B finals, placing them seventh in the world.

They were followed by other team members, Jahrling and assistant coach Debbie Fox and team manager Mick O'Callaghan.

Richard Archibald and Paul Griffin of the lightweight four again marvelled at the sheer size and volubility of the Irish support in Eton, but there were few fans at the airport. While team celebrations may have been quiet last night, supporters had no such restrictions and some will return home in more leisurely fashion.

Sinéad Jennings, who forms the women's lightweight double scull with Niamh Ní Cheilleachair, has just finished her fourth year of medical studies in Trinity and was in the airport for only a few hours before taking off again for a new challenge.

"I'm doing a surgical elective in Brisbane (in Australia). I'm flying at five - I just came back to be with the team," said the Donegal woman who breaks her journey in Singapore, where her sister Caitríona lives.

Gearóid Towey was hugged by his aunt, Annette O'Connor, who said she was happy to be back in their airport with her nephew for such an occasion. Exactly seven months and 13 day before, she had been emotionally embracing Towey after he and Ciarán Lewis had come back from the brink of disaster when a freak wave capsized their boat as they attempted to row the Atlantic. Towey, Eugene Coakley, Griffin and Archibald are now near the crest of a more benign wave, which may carry them all the way to the medal podium in Beijing.

They had to give way to gold medallists China on Sunday, but they are on much the same level as France, who pipped them for the silver. But the Irish crew has potential to improve further. Jahrling certainly thinks so.

"The idea is to have a crew which can perform consistently at the top level. But I've always said that if we want to win a medal in Beijing we have to work on our system too: the way we prepare our athletes; our science; our approach to rowing technique. We're just a little behind many many countries and we are on the way to pick it up. That Institute (of Sport) is coming and I really think that's going to help us to make that crew faster."

O'Callaghan, who was also on a quick turnaround in the airport before flying back to Cork, where he is back to work today, was also upbeat. "'Twas a good year - the most successful ever in the history of Irish international rowing."

Next year there will be one more event on the calendar: it was announced last evening that the revived European Championships will be held on the weekend of September 22nd and 23rd in Poznan in Poland. The annual congress of FISA, the world governing body, confirmed yesterday that the 2010 World Championships will be held in New Zealand.