Lynch forced to retire from competition

ROWING: Sam Lynch has retired from international rowing and ruled out representing Ireland at the next Olympics. The 30-year-old Limerick man, the world champion in the lightweight single scull in 2001 and 2002 and who competed at the Olympics in 1996 and 2004, has a hip condition which could leave him with long-term damage if he competed in the short term.

"I've got hardening of the cartilage in my hip, basically," the medical student explained yesterday. "I've been advised that while rowing and running will be possible at some point in the future, in the immediate term it's not really advisable.

"If I don't stop I'll shear the cartilage away from the base of the hip joint and end up with an arthritic hip. That's just really messy, and there's quite a lot of pain as well. I've been in pain with it since the last (Olympic) Games, to be honest, but we only narrowed it down in the last two months."

There is a chance he might return to domestic rowing, or even international competition, in the long term, but for now he hopes cycling may fill the void. "I hope to do a bit of that to keep me sane and to keep me fit," he said.

In his pomp, Lynch was one of the golden boys of the sport. He ruled the lightweight single class, winning every World Cup he entered in 2001 and 2002 and the World Championships in Lucerne (2001) and Seville (2002).

"The race that I was the most satisfied with was Seville," Lynch said. "I didn't feel any pressure on me because I had been world champion before. I kind of enjoyed that whole season."

Lynch was part of the lightweight four which just missed out on a bronze medal at Atlanta in 1996 and, with Gearóid Towey, he exited the Athens Games at the semi-final stage. A problem with the weigh-in robbed them of their chance and left a bitter taste.

But this disappointment was not the biggest of his career. In 2000, he was the best lightweight single sculler in the world but only took silver at the World Championships in Zagreb.

"I should have won that race, to be honest. I was second by .2 or .3 of a second. Maybe it was a rite of passage or something like that. It was purely my own lack of self-belief that I didn't win the race."

He talks of having a "successful enough career" and is thankful to his long-term coach, Thor Nilsen, but agrees that had the present regime here - with a top-class coach, Harald Jahrling, based in the country - been in place earlier he might have Olympic medals.

"When I was in my twenties I was spending my parents' money on trips to Scandinavia and trips to Spain to get coached by a man abroad.

"The system we have now should have been in place a long time ago," he says.