Ireland Olympian Sanita Puspure faces disciplinary proceedings because of her tweet in which she expressed her disappointment at the removal of her coach Sean Casey.
The issues of how athletes are dealt with is set to come up at the next meeting of the board of Rowing Ireland on Saturday, January 13th. There has been ongoing tension between the high performance athletes and some of the permanent staff of Rowing Ireland.
The deadline for applications for a new coach to replace Sean Casey has been extended to January 15th. The advertisement for the job specifies that the coach should have “a proven track record of coaching at World and Olympic level”. This effectively rules out a raft of leading candidates in Ireland.
Dominic Casey has travelled out to Seville with a lightweight group for a self-funded training camp there. A number of Irish clubs – including Blackrock College, Queen's and NUIG – have been having a productive time there in good conditions. UCD are set to arrive in the next few days.
Mark O’Donovan and Shane O’Driscoll and Gary and Paul O’Donovan head for New Zealand on Sunday, and will spend the next three months in New Zealand and Australia. They intend to compete in the national championships of both countries. The step up to heavyweight rowing by Mark O’Donovan and Shane O’Driscoll makes the trip an interesting challenge for the world champions in the lightweight pair.
Back in Ireland, two junior training camps were planned for this weekend. The one pencilled in for the National Rowing Centre in Cork has been cancelled, but the camp in Belfast is set to go ahead. Training days for juniors are scheduled for this Saturday, January 7th. They are set for Limerick, Cork (the Marina), Belfast and Dublin. Those athletes invited to the NRC camp have been reassigned to these.
Two new coaches
The Get Going Get Rowing programme, which brings young people into the sport, is looking for two new coaches, one in Dublin and one in Cork.
Registration for the Irish Indoor Rowing Championships closes on Wednesday, January 10th. The event will be held at the University of Limerick on Saturday, January 20th.
Out at sea, Damian Browne has had a good spell in the Atlantic Challenge race. In his most recent Facebook post he says he is "grinding away" – and it is working. The solo oarsman, who rows as Gullivers Travels, has moved from 20th to 19th in the rankings, passing the Team Remolon pair. Closer to the head of the field, Home to Portrush has taken over in fifth from Relentless, crewed by oarsmen from Cork and Dublin.
After three weeks at sea both fours have covered roughly two-thirds of the journey from the Canary Islands to Antigua in the West Indies.
