ROWING:BENT JENSEN, one of the greatest of all rowing coaches and an extraordinarily courageous man, died this week. Jensen (60) guided the Denmark lightweight four to two golds and a bronze at successive Olympics. He switched to Canada in 2006 and topped off his career by taking them to a bronze in the lightweight four in Beijing - while undergoing chemotherapy for the pancreatic cancer which killed him on Tuesday.

"He's got the gold and the bronze here," Canada's bowman Ian Brambell told this reporter in Beijing, referring to the fact that the Denmark four were first home. "He's the only coach who has medals from all the Olympics where lightweights competed."

Jensen's death comes just as coaching moves to the top of the agenda here, with the announcement of a National Coaching Conference which will take place on January 25th in Dublin. The incoming Performance Director for the sport, Martin McElroy, will be joined as a speaker at the event by Fisa's Development Director, Thor Nilsen, along with outgoing Ireland lightweight coach John Holland and Giles Warrington of Dublin City University.

The hopes for McElroy are high, but one of the hurdles he will face is the competition from other sports. Two of our top internationals, Caroline Ryan and Richard Coakley, have been at a track cycling training camp in Switzerland in the past week, and cycling has been openly courting rowers as part of Route 2012 scheme.