O'Toole and Holland put in heavyweight performance

Niall O'Toole and Derek Holland gave Ireland another good day at the world rowing championships at St Catharines, near Toronto, yesterday, winning their repechage easily to move into tomorrow's lightweight double scull semi-final. The two were understandably pleased, and are now clearly seeing what might have seemed a handicap as a possible advantage: this is their first competitive championships. They teamed up only after no other lightweight double could be found with the potential to qualify for the Olympics in Sydney next year. But yesterday both were characterising this as a positive factor.

"Every race is a final for us, we have a lot to prove," said Holland, who added that they are clearly improving with each race (they finished second in the heats on Monday), whereas the other crews are settled and know the limits of their potential.

"Things are going very well for us," said Holland. "This clicked for us on day one, and ever since we have been developing."

Certainly on yesterday's performance they appeared to have the potential to go further. In conditions very similar to a pleasant if overcast Irish day, they swiftly opened the lead over Portugal soon after the start, with the third crew, Paraguay, never a real threat.

The Irish and the Portuguese duly took the two qualification places.

"The aim was to have a good first 1,000 metres so as to have an easy second 1,000," said national coach Thor Nilsen, and the race reflected this perfectly.

Finishing in the top two in the semi-final tomorrow would see O'Toole and Holland through to the A final, which would be extraordinary for a debutant crew. A place in third or fourth would see them through to the B final, knowing that they would be guaranteed a place in the Olympics if they took one of the top four places in that race, as this would place them in the top 10 in the world. It is this dream of an Olympic place which drives O'Toole most. "The aim is to get an Olympic medal," he says, although a place in the A final would be great.

Does it help that he already has a World championship gold, which he won as a singles sculler in Vienna in 1991? "Well, a chapter has finished for me with World championship rowing," he agreed.

He is full of admiration for Holland's similar ability to look at the long-term goal, and the two have clearly developed a strong sense of purpose.

Ireland now has no fewer than four chances of medals in these championships: the lightweight double are joined in the semi-finals by the lightweight pair of Neville Maxwell and Tony O'Connor and the lightweight single of Sam Lynch. The lightweight quadruples scull has already gone straight through to the A final.

All this ensures there is plenty of potential for celebration among the group of friends, many from Galway, who have made the long trip to Canada.

One visitor, for whom a chapter in Irish rowing might seem to have finished, is Sean Drea, but yesterday he was on the bank as O'Toole and Holland alighted from their boat.

Drea, who won three Diamond Sculls titles at Henley and twice finished just outside the medals at the Olympic Games, is now part of the Irish coaching set-up. He returned to Ireland from Philadelphia late last year. "I've been coaching in the US since I stopped rowing," says the man who now farms in Co Wicklow. One can see his inspirational qualities in how he looks back at the failure of single sculler, Albert Maher, to qualify for the A semi-finals on Tuesday.