ROWING: Another wonderful World Championship for the Irish; and yet, with success comes strident complaints from the athletes about the set-up. People outside the sport - and a good few inside it - wonder why this pattern keeps repeating itself.
Team manager Mick O'Callaghan contends the results since he became manager make his case. He's a can-do character whose brusqueness can blind people to his cleverness. He has played a hands-on part in developing the National Rowing Centre in Cork and has stayed in charge of the international set-up in the face of a number of challenges.
Yet if the storm breaking around the sport carries him off, the single most damaging factor may be his lack of delegation.
"It doesn't really matter who is coaching or who is doing everything else," he contends. "If I can get help from elsewhere and get results, that surely is what it is all about."
Yet the impression this season has been of a man trying to keep the strings firmly in his grasp.
Three of our four gold medals in the last two seasons have been produced under the coaching of Thor Nilsen in Spain. Yet this season, when the National Rowing Centre proved unsuitable for the squad and athletes were distancing themselves from national coach Hamish Burrell, O'Callaghan, who played the key part in the appointment of the Scot, resisted taking the squad to Spain and letting Nilsen and Burrell work on the coaching jointly, opting instead for a new base in Enniskillen.
Burrell had more than his share of bad luck with his women's lightweight double crew. Sinead Jennings suffered a neck condition and then twisted her knee in Italy when the squad were based there.
Yet the schism that has developed between coach and crew has its origins in whether the injured Jennings should have competed at the World Championships at all; and again one wonders why the decision seemed to rest in different hands to that of the medical personnel. In fact, one wonders why there was no team doctor in Seville at such a big event.
In June, after admitting to making a mistake at a regatta and with strong pressure coming from the athletes, O'Callaghan moved into the role of high performance director, and it seemed he had relinquished the team manager's job. An IARU bulletin said: "It is expected that a full-time management post will be created in the near future". Yet come the World Championships it seemed as if nothing had changed.
There are structural as well as personality problems underlying the difficulties in Irish rowing. Clubs, for instance, are the core part of the union, and as the union is democratic they can effect change. Yet many in clubs seem to want it both ways: not having done anything to change the structure, they reserve the right to criticise it.
Similarly, the athletes, if they want a professional team manager, must co-operate with the body appointed to move in this direction.
Tony O'Connor, who has been a full-time athlete for much of his adult life, says our rowers are professionals but the officials running the sport are not. "We know what is required - unfortunately the people at home don't."
Sam Lynch will be taken by open-top bus through the streets of Limerick from his home on the Ennis Road to St Michael's Rowing Club on O'Callaghan Strand tonight to celebrate his achievement in winning gold at the World Championships.
