Nine rowers will represent Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Games Regatta at Strathclyde in Scotland this weekeend.
Queen's University has the bulk of the entry with five (Tiernan Oliver, Gareth McKillen, Christopher Black, Rebecca Mackey and Rebecca Edwards); Belfast Boat Club have two (Sarah Quinn and Lisa Cameron) and Portadown (Sam McKeown) and Bann (James McAfee) complete the team. They will compete in different combinations over the non-standard distances of 1,500 metres and 500 metres.
The team will go into action hoping to at least come close to matching the success of the Ireland team at the Coupe de la Jeunesse in Bordeaux last weekend. The haul of a gold medal, four silvers and two bronzes was an excellent return from the seven crews.
The quadruple scull of Colm Hennessy, Eoghan Whittle, Patrick Munnelly and Andrew Goff were the surprise gold medallists. The women's pair of Oisín and Dervla Forde took silver on both days, as did the men's double of Conor Carmody and David O'Malley.
The men's pair of David and Brian Keohane and the women's double of Eimear Lambe and Jasmine English took silver on the first day and finished fourth on the second.
Domestic rowers
At home, the last hurrah of the season for many domestic rowers came in the west. The Carrick-on-Shannon sprints staged 110 races – on the wettest day of the year. The attraction of the location makes the event a popular – and this area is set to be visited a lot more by rowers in the coming years.
The nearby Lough Rynn will soon host the Irish Canoe Sprint Championships, and Carrick rowing club may organise an invitation event this autumn.
The course, which recently received a capital grant of €150,000, looks set to stage at least one big rowing event next year. It will become only the second permanently-buoyed eight-lane course in Ireland, behind the National Rowing Centre in Cork.
It would seem perfectly placed to host at least one Grand League regatta, though which club or clubs would host this is still moot.
In the Great Pacific Rowing Race, the Pacific Warriors crew, with Trinity student Susannah Cass the lone woman on board, landed in Hawaii yesterday. The all-female crew Boatylicious, including Irish doctor Aoife Ní Mhaoileoin, was also closing in on the finish yesterday.
