Confident Maxwell sets sights only on gold

Only two days to go before an Irish team with real hopes of winning medals swings into action in the World Championships in St Catharines, Canada.

The confidence within the team can be gauged from the comments of Neville Maxwell in the unofficial rowing website, irish.rowing.com: the lightweight pair of Maxwell and O'Connor "would only be happy with a gold" in the championships which start on Sunday, he writes.

Such comments may seem to be tempting fate - especially as strongly-grounded hopes of medals for the Irish lightweight four crumbled to dust in last year's championships.

Yet an objective look at the record of O'Connor (30) and Maxwell (29) suggests gold is a strong possibility, and the most compelling argument was their dismissal of the world's best in their goldmedal performance in the Lucerne World Cup regatta last month.

This too is the pair which has a solid record in World Championships - bronze ('94), finalists ('95), silver ('96), silver ('97). The man who has coached them for much of their career, John Holland, has little doubt about their potential. "Yes they deserve to be favourites, absolute favourites," he says.

The chances of the lightweight pair, who have won sponsorship from solicitors A&L Goodbody, are boosted because this discipline will not be part of next year's Olympic Games. In effect, the championships fall into two categories, with those competing in Olympic-class boats fighting to qualify those boats for the Sydney Games, with the level of competition thus more demanding.

This has prompted O'Connor and Maxwell to take on a gruelling schedule by competing as a heavyweight pair to qualify the boat for the Olympics, although whether they would then compete in this discipline in Sydney would be a decision for another day.

The attempt to qualify their boat for Sydney is also the demanding task facing the lightweight double scull of Niall O'Toole (29) and Derek Holland (25), who will have to be in the top 10 in St Catharines to do this.

O'Toole's gold medal in the World Championships in Vienna in 1991 gives him strong claims to be our foremost oarsman, and Holland was part of the lightweight four which just missed a medal in the 1996 Olympics. But this double was formed late in the year only after other selections had not reached the required standard. Winning an Olympic place for the boat would be a remarkable feat.

The women's heavyweight double of Debbie Stack and Mary Hussey also have qualification for Sydney as their aim, and again the odds look set against them. Both have outstanding domestic records, and in their favour is the coaching of Sean Drea, muchpraised by national director of coaching Thor Nilsen.

Drea, too, has played his part in bringing along heavyweight single sculler Albert Maher (26). Like so many of the Irish team, the Corkman has shown a steely will, putting some disappointing results behind him to keep his eyes on the prize of an Olympic place, although he seems unlikely to take it here.

Lightweight sculler Sam Lynch (23), like the lightweight pair of O'Connor and Maxwell, is competing in a non-Olympic discipline, and like them he may well win a medal. The Limerickman won bronze in Lucerne and could match it here. The lightweight quadruple scull would also hope to add a bronze medal or better to their bronze from Lucerne. Stroke Neal Byrne (23), James Lindsay-Fynn (23), Gearoid Towey (22) and Noel Monahan (29) may fight it out with Germany and the US for the silver and bronze behind favourites Italy.