Irish coastal rowing is booming and this weekend the highlight of of the year, the All-Ireland Coastal Rowing Championships, will be held Lough Currane, near Waterville in Kerry.
The numbers are impressive. “We have 530 crews and just short of 2,700 rowers. It’s the biggest championships to date,” said Mary B Teehan of the Irish Coastal Rowing Federation.
The event has become so big that this year it will be hosted not by a single club but by the Kerry Coastal Rowing Association. The other big passion in the area will be weaved into the action, as Mick O’Dwyer will be involved in prize giving and Maurice Fitzgerald will start a race.
The championships begin at 4pm this afternoon and run through to Sunday. There is a promise of high-definition coverage of Sunday’s finals using the link crvlive.com.
Ireland’s representative at the Youth Olympic Games, Eimear Lambe, has been in Hong Kong preparing, before moving to the venue of Nanjing in China. Lambe, who is the younger sister of senior international Claire, will compete in the junior single sculls. She has just turned 17
so has another year left at this level.
The Ireland senior team for the world championships will fly out on Thursday. Head coach Don McLachlan said yesterday that the “unsettled” weather at the National Rowing Centre was making training a little difficult, but the crews are in good condition.
Morten Espersen, the Ireland high-performance director, has long emphasised the need for Ireland crews to be competitive for next year’s world championships
where they can qualify boats for the Olympic Games. And McLachlan has a similar message. “I think the reality of the situation is that it is going to take another year to get the physiology and the technique where we want it. But already people are showing some signs of moving on, which is great.”
At the Commonwealth Rowing Championships in Scotland, the men’s double and single sculler Gareth McKillen (500m) took bronze for Northern Ireland.
Dermot Henihan, former president of the Irish Amateur Rowing Union, has been elected general secretary of the Olympic Council of Ireland. Henihan continues to be a familiar voice to all Irish rowing fans because of his entertaining commentary on the Irish Rowing Championships. Another rowing man, Peadar Casey, was honoured by the council as he stepped down as OCI treasurer.
