ROWING:AN INTENSE burst of top-class rowing activity begins today with the National Assessment regatta at the National Rowing Centre in Cork.

The same venue will hold the Irish University and Irish Schools’ Championships next Saturday and on the following day Skibbereen Regatta becomes the first event in the newly-sponsored eFlow Go Row grand league.

If a rower or spectator has a taste for two-boat racing with a strong social aspect, Trinity Regatta graces Islandbridge tomorrow – the first regatta of the domestic season.

In an important year for Irish rowing, 97 athletes who hope to make it into Ireland rowing teams will compete at the assessment, which runs through the weekend.

The bulk of that number are junior athletes, with the very best hoping to take a step towards the World Junior Championships in August. But in this Olympic year the focus of the best seniors will be on making a crew for the Olympic Qualification Regatta in Lucerne in six weeks’ time.

“Our aim, ideally, is to have three boats going to the qualifier: a lightweight women’s double; hopefully a lightweight men’s double and hopefully a heavyweight women’s boat of some sort,” said Ireland peformance director Martin McElroy yesterday. If they can maintain their elevated standard, the women’s lightweight double of Siobhan McCrohan and Claire Lambe looks set fair for the qualifier. Mark O’Donovan and Niall Kenny look in pole position if a men’s lightweight double is chosen.

However, the position for heavyweight women is complicated by the absence from this weekend’s trial of Lisa Dilleen, who has withdrawn due to illness. She formed a double with Sanita Puspure which finished 12th at last year’s World Championships (four places off automatic qualification). Puspure and Monika Dukarska are set to trial, but world junior silver medallist Holly Nixon also misses out, through injury.

An Ireland team will travel to an international regatta in Piediluco next weekend and one will compete at the first World Cup in Belgrade on the first weekend of May. McElroy said the crews for the Olympic Qualifier will not be finalised until after Belgrade.

Skibbereen Regatta will certainly be a fitting opening event for the eFlow Go Row league as it has drawn a spectacularly large entry. The all-island nature of the league is clear in the senior eights, where Galway’s Grainne Mhaol and Cork Boat Club are set to take on Queen’s University of Belfast.

Trinity Regatta tomorrow at Islandbridge has a 12-hour racing schedule from 7am with a particularly big novice and junior entry. Included in the day’s social activities is a regatta luncheon in Trinity’s venerable boathouse, which has photographs of crews stretching back to the 19th century and a fine view of the river.

The famous university boat race between Oxford and Cambridge is set for 2.15pm in London tomorrow. It will be covered by the BBC.