Lynch set for defence of title

ROWING: Sam Lynch begins the defence of his lightweight single sculls title at the World Rowing Championships at Seville, Spain, in a heat on Sunday as part of an increasingly confident and positive Ireland team.

Lynch, along with Ireland's other best hopes of a medal, the defending champions at lightweight pair, Tony O'Connor and Gearoid Towey, has joined the team in Seville having been based in the Sierra Nevada at Pradollano, 2,600 metres up, with coach Thor Nilsen.

"Life is good really and all in all it is a very relaxed training camp," Towey said in a piece in the irishrowing.com website. "We trained here prior to last year's World Championships. We row on a large lake (four kilometres) at an altitude of 1,000 metres, so we live high and train low. This gives us the best of both worlds as we benefit from the effect of high altitude while still being able to do high-intensity outings on the water."

O'Connor, Towey, and other Ireland crews of men's lightweight four and men's and women's lightweight double scull, have heats on Monday, team manager Mick O'Callaghan confirmed. Their programme would then see them take part in a repechage, if necessary, on Wednesday, semi-finals on Friday and finals on Sunday. Lynch's programme runs one day before this.

O'Callaghan said the training camps had "gone very well". The remainder of the Ireland team spent 20 days at Varese in Italy and eight in Banyoles in Spain and O'Callaghan said the Sports Council's High Performance grant had made "a big difference" in allowing the team to train properly.

"I'm particularly pleased with the Olympic boats," O'Callaghan said. However, those boats, the two lightweight doubles and the lightweight four, would have to perform exceptionally well to reach A finals, and O'Callaghan confirmed that the target is to have the women's crew in the top nine and the men's in the top 11, which is the standard for Olympic qualification from next year's World Championships.

Sinead Jennings has overcome her troublesome neck condition sufficiently to be able to compete, but the Donegal pharmacist, who teams up with Heather Boyle in the lightweight double, has had a disrupted season and is unlikely to repeat her gold medal showing of last year in the lightweight single in this crew.

The men's lightweight four have shown admirable form for a young crew - Derek Holland is 28 but Neil Casey is only 21, Paul Griffin 23 and Ricky Archibald 24. Wins in the B finals at the World Cup events at Lucerne and Munich suggest that an A final place - putting them in the top six in the world - could be possible.

This would be quite an improvement as a four, which included Griffin and Casey, placed second in the C final last year.

Eugene Coakley (23) from Skibbereen has had a terrific year so far, winning both lightweight and open single sculling events at the National Championships, and teams up with Dubliner Neal Byrne (26) in a lightweight double that will not lack for talent. But the crew was only formed just before the Munich World Cup and it would be asking a lot to see them reach the A final.

However, one lightweight sculler who certainly expects to be in Saturday's A final is Lynch. The 26-year-old is the clear favourite to again put Ireland on top of the world come next weekend.