Tense days ahead as elite focus on Athens

Rowing News round-upThe members of the Ireland squad arrived in Belgium yesterday with a week's training in Hazewinkel ahead of them and Athens on their minds.

The next few weeks will decide which athletes join Sam Lynch and Gearóid Towey at the Olympic Games in three months' time.

Ireland have qualified a lightweight double, which Lynch and Towey will crew, and a lightweight four for Athens. Which athletes crew the four and who wins the right to crew other boats at the Olympic Qualifier in a month's time is the big issue of the summer.

One question has been all but answered, however. Heather Boyle and Sinead Jennings will compete as Ireland's only lightweight women's double at the Wedau Regatta in Duisberg next weekend. If they perform well there and in the World Cup regatta in Munich a week later they will represent Ireland at the Olympic Qualifier in Lucerne two weeks later. Fiola Foley and Niamh Ní Cheilleachair will also compete in Duisberg, but as single scullers.

A good performance at Duisberg is hugely important for the men's four, which has been rowing out of Leander in Britain in recent weeks. Alan Martin, John Forde, Serryth Colbert and Kenny McCarthy underperformed in the finals on both days of last weekend's regatta in Ghent and will want to prove they are worth their places at Munich and Lucerne. Three heavyweight scullers, Paul O'Sullivan, Seán Casey and Sean Jacob, have a similar mission. Casey and Jacob will team up as a double on one of the days.

Lynch and Towey, as expected, will compete in the heavyweight section in Duisberg - and may also go this route in Munich, which would raise some eyebrows. Team management point out there is no pressure on them to bring their "fighting weight" down until they need to. "There is only one race we need to win this year and that is in Athens," said Richard Parr, Ireland's high-performance director, yesterday.

The intense competition for places in the lightweight four will not be played out directly next weekend, as Ireland has entered a lightweight four and a heavyweight four for Duisberg. On Monday, however, the crews for Munich will be entered, and this will be closely studied - although half of each crew can be changed before the event.