Rowing Ireland have just submitted an ambitious plan to Sport Ireland which would involve two more coaches coming on board in 2017, in addition to a lead coach, the role set to be taken by Dominic Casey.
"We have the people on board ready to go. We just need to get the funding to put it in place," said Neville Maxwell, chair of the high performance committee of Rowing Ireland.
Morten Espersen, the high performance director who oversaw the qualification of three boats for Rio 2016, says the aim for this Olympiad to qualify five boats, with heavyweight men and women both represented by crew boats.
“I am not whingeing, but if Sport Ireland wants to be part of two [rowing] medals at Tokyo 2020, then we have to put the money in,” Espersen said.
Building heavyweight crews for Tokyo 2020 is a major undertaking.
The new coach, should he be taken on board, will be expected to liaise with universities and tap this resource. The World Rowing Championships and the new European Under-23 Championships are unusually late in the year, in September, and the hope is to have Ireland heavyweight crews competing.
Enough women
Espersen says that there are already enough women in the programme that an Ireland heavyweight eight could yet be formed.
Aoife Feeley
and
Aifric Keogh
have been put together as a pair and are training in this boat.
This weekend 10 coaches and 35 athletes, stretching from Olympic silver medallists Paul and Gary O'Donovan to development athletes, will take part in a camp at the National Rowing Centre. Coaches have been working with development groups around the country.
Off the water, two big events on Saturday give ambitious rowers the opportunity to test themselves on ergometers.
The Irish Provinces Indoor Rowing Championships at the University of Limerick has drawn close to 900 entries and the Leinster Indoor Rowing competition at the Garda Boat Club in Dublin has drawn 243.
Athletes in the high performance programme must do an ergometer test, but most have opted to do them in their clubs, or at the National Rowing Centre – the O’Donovan brothers have taken this route.
The two indoor competitions have a huge representation of young athletes, reflecting in part the growth in interest in the sport since Rio 2016.
The next big test on ergometers is the Irish Indoor Championships in Limerick in January, which will feature the top internationals.
