When the Ireland team flies out for the second World Cup, which begins next Friday, June 16th, one team member will be going home.
"Where I grew up is 10 minutes in a tram from the course," Monika Dukarska says. "I used to cycle around the lake with my dad when I was little. There are places to play; we spent a lot of time there. I never thought I would compete on Lake Malta one day."
Over a decade ago, when Monika was 16 and her sister Agnieszka just 11, the Dukarska family moved to Ireland to find work and both girls learned to row in Killorglin, though Agnieszka has since dropped away.
Monika became proficient, and made her way into the Ireland system. But, though she put in the work the results did not match her ambition. She last competed for Ireland at Lake Malta in 2015, in a pair, but they could only finish ninth.
Dukarska opted out of the Ireland system early in 2016, disenchanted. Since then she has campaigned as a self-funded single sculler. There have been successes: when she returned to Poznan last year she took a bronze medal at the World University Games.
And she has stacked up good results this year. She came out of the big Metropolitan Regatta at the Olympic course in Dorney after winning on both days in the Championship Single.
She’s 26 now. She knows she has improved on her own, but now she wants to be involved in competitive races at the very top level. And to be backed by the Ireland system.
“I want to be acknowledged as a prospect – that I have potential.” She is making no big predictions for the weekend. “We’ll take each day at a time.”
Ahead of her in the rankings in the single is Sanita Puspure, who is also travelling to Poznan. Puspure had a disappointing Olympics, but has been amongst the top single scullers in the world in recent years, and has never been truly tested by Dukarska in competition.
Illness ruled the 34-year-old out of the European Championships, but she had been testing very well in the build-up. She may not shine at Poznan, but she hopes to be back to top form by the final World Cup at Lucerne in July.
A plateau
The highs of the European Championships may not be reproduced in full in Poznan. Gold medallists Mark O'Donovan and Shane O'Driscoll and silver medallist Denise Walsh will be in the hunt to keep their runs going. But Paul and Gary O'Donovan possibly reached "a plateau", at least for the moment, in Racice [the words are Paul's] and they are in a fiercely-competitive event – the one lightweight men's discipline which has Olympic medals at the end of the four-year cycle.
Building a bigger Ireland team for that cycle is now the pressing concern. Along with Puspure and Dukarska, Aifric Keogh and Aileen Crowley have been entered (as a pair) in the women's heavyweight events. The results for Metropolitan Regatta, with a Skibbereen double of Walsh and Aoife Casey joining Dukarska on the winners' podium and a slew of other fine placings for club crews, look genuinely promising.
Back home, Carlow Regatta was boosted by the enthusiasm of young rowers. The regatta is one of the oldest in Ireland –158 years on the go – and is extraordinarily welcoming for newcomers. Two facts from two days of competition: in junior event after junior event, there are medals for every race winner; Coleraine Grammar School camped out on Saturday night on the land of a friend of the club. Hats off to the organisers.
This weekend was pencilled into the High Performance Programme for an under-23 trial for heavyweight women. However, because of the forecast of high winds, this has been cancelled.
