ROWING/World Under-23 Championships: Ireland's two heavyweight crews at the World Under-23 Championships in Belgrade are first into action today.

The men's heavyweight four of Alan Martin, Marc Stevens, Paul Giblin and Kenny McCarthy are virtually a new crew, yet have an outstanding record. Formed at last month's trials for this event they won the Visitors' Cup at Henley Royal Regatta with some extraordinary performances, and swept all before them at the National Championships.

However, their category is one of the biggest at the regatta, so the three NUIG men and Skibbereen's McCarthy will only know how good they are in world terms come Sunday evening.

Another Skibbereen man, Paul O'Sullivan, competes in the men's single scull today. This is the biggest event of the championships and will not be made any easier by the hot conditions - temperatures have moderated recently, but they have soared through the high 30s over the past few days.

Ireland's three other crews - the men's lightweight four and lightweight pair and Alison Downey in the women's lightweight single - compete for the first time tomorrow. Repechages are also scheduled for tomorrow, with semi-finals and finals on Sunday.

If any of the Irish competitors needed a spur beyond competing at such a huge regatta - 41 nations are taking part - they might have found it in the comments of Thor Nilsen yesterday.

The Norwegian who is in charge of Ireland's lightweight programme, said it was possible some of the under-23 athletes might yet represent Ireland at the senior World Championships in Milan next month. "We will see what they do at the world under-23s," he said.

Nilsen was, as he said himself, "sitting in Limerick in the rain" yesterday and plans to stay in the country until Ireland's team for Milan is picked, probably early next week. The elite lightweight squad have been undergoing tests in the National Coaching and Training Centre and hope to trial on the water by the end of the week.

With the men's lightweight double already chosen after Sam Lynch and Gearóid Towey picked themselves with their fourth place at the World Cup regatta in Lucerne, the main focus is on the men's lightweight four and women's lightweight double, the other relevant Olympic crews, for Milan.

The standard is very even, Nilsen says, with the eventual choice of who forms the crews being his.

Following hard on the heels of last weekend's National Championships, the National Rowing Centre at Inniscarra Lake in Cork hosts the Home Internationals tomorrow.

On the domestic front, the National Sprint Championships and Carrick-on-Shannon regatta will both take place on Sunday week at Carrick, with Saturday a free day.