HAVING just amassed a medal collection worthy of a military museum, Irish rowing is about to embark on its next international campaign with ambitious plans to double the size of its Olympic squad for the Sydney 2000 Games.

An official review of the past season, which yielded 17 medals from junior and senior international competition, has identified five boats for Olympic consideration with the screening process due to begin next month.

Already assured of their places are Tony O'Connor, Neville Maxwell, Sam Lynch and Derek Holland. Their performance in Atlanta has earned them an early selection endorsement by the Irish Amateur Rowing Union's (IARU) international committee. In less than 50 minutes of racing, the lightweight coxless four have already finished fourth in the Olympics and established themselves, in the understated words of the British rowing bible Regatra, as "a crew to be reckoned with".

Sam Lynch's move from Limerick to study in Dublin will see the entire crew rowing out of the Neptune club with their first outing at the London Head in November to be followed next year by a busy international fixture list that includes the World Championships and a new World Cup Series for Olympic boats.

The only other boat which at this stage has been targeted for the three race series is the lightweight double scull. The IARU would no doubt like to keep faith with Brendan Dolan and Niall O'Toole's partnership which was only three seconds off the world record pace when their Olympics ended. However, O'Toole's disillusionment with the selection system keeps the door open.

Gearoid Towey, one of those who would be in the running, has come to prominence through a route that is increasingly seen as being key to the development of Ireland's senior squad. Last year Towey was fifih at the World Junior Championships, this year the lightweight sculler won gold at a defacto under 23 world championships, the Nations Cup.

The recent medal haul brought home by Irish juniors from the European Coup de Jeunesse (seven gold, five silver and two bronze) has only highlighted the gaping hole in the existing squad system. With no bridge between junior and senior international competition, it has invariably been left to the clubs to bring on the athletes early potential, a situation that has caused its own problems of mistrust when national coaches have taken over later.

In the view of the IARU international committee, the solution is to hang the under 23 link on the Nations Cup. Apart from Towey's success in Hazewinkel, silver for UCD's Vanessa Lawrenson and Debbie Stack has raised the prospect of a coxless pair racing at Sydney with hopes that the new crop of women will also produce an Olympic lightweight double scull.

The other boat to feature in Olympic plans either a coxless pair or four is expected to see Irish heavyweights qualify for their first Games since Moscow. However, the emerging group of lightweight oarsmen and scullers will still have a stranglehold on places in World Championship boats the lightweight single scull, quad, coxless pair and, provided it keeps its FISA status, the eight.

Given the new found significance of under 23 rowing, the IARU seem likely to decide at next month's a.g.m. to move the National Championships back to September and avoid a July clash with next year's Nations Cup. Provided the college clubs don't block the change, a team of four or five boats will race in Milan.

The expansion in senior squad numbers has been welcomed by Neville Maxwell, who sees further gains to be made in the Atlanta four's performance. "With the new guys coming in we're getting a broader base. The aim is to have the pair as a reserve boat and we want it tough to get into the four.

"We are moving up the learning curve, but we need to be faster and physically stronger at the Olympics we were beaten by crews who had been on similar training programmes to us for three years - and you can't do that by having a situation were people are assured of a place in the boat."

With warm weather and altitude training abroad, full time coaching programmes, medical testing and living costs, IARU president Dermot Henihan is looking for £150,000 a year to put the coxless four in the medals.