Rowing News round-up: The most comprehensive trialing process ever undertaken in Irish rowing gets under way in the National Rowing Centre in Cork on Monday.
From over 240 nomination forms, 117 athletes have been invited to the trials, which will create national crews at junior, under-23 and senior men's heavyweight level and hone a lightweight squad for next year's Olympics.
While Sam Lynch and Sinead Jennings are named in the 117 the present and former world champion have been given a dispensation from attending in order to avoid aggravating injuries they have both recently overcome.
The list omits Commercial's Owen Byrne (23), who is coming back from a back injury and did not seek a place, but includes Sean O'Neill, a Limerick man who travelled to New Zealand to play rugby and found he was so good at rowing he won a national title there in the Premier Pairs.
The man behind the week-long process, national Performance Director Richard Parr, said yesterday he was "quite thrilled" with the numbers involved - 23 junior women and 34 junior men - and he sees this as a chance for them to see all the steps on the ladder that could take them to the very top in the sport.
"They say it takes six years to achieve in rowing," he says, pointing out this is just about the time remaining to the Beijing Olympics.
For Trinity oarsman Stuart King (19), the timing of the trials will give him one of the toughest weeks of his life. Today at Castlewellan in Co Down he will be part of the Trinity senior eight which competes at the University Championships; he will compete again tomorrow at the Queen's University regatta at the same venue; and by Monday morning he will at the other end of the country preparing for the "torture" of ergometer tests and on-the-water action.
The Queen's senior eight will be competing in their first regatta of the season today, and it could be one of the races of the season, as they take on NUIG and UCD in addition to Trinity.
At the Queen's regatta Lady Elizabeth - who finished 25th at the London Head of the River, two places behind Queen's - slot in for NUIG, which should make for another good race.
