April 2008 Olympic Rowing Team Train at NUI Galway

Seven Irish Olympic Heavyweight Rowing team were in training on the Corrib recently during a break between training camps in Southern France. Head Coach Harald Jarling requested the use of the NUI Galway Boat Club facilities and the assistance of some extra personnel to complete an eight-man team.

Three members of the Olympic team are NUI Galway rowers, Alan Martin (Salthill), Cormac Folan (Barna) and James Wall (Limerick). For the weekend's training, they were joined by Evin Donnelly and Ruadhán Cooke, of NUI Galway Boat Club.

Ruadhán Cooke, NUI Galway Boat Club, said, "We had a wonderful if exhausting two-day training session. The Galway based squad members thoroughly enjoyed being back on their home patch for a few days. Evin Donnelly and I really appreciated the opportunity of linking up with our club mates and experiencing training at this level".

Head Coach Harald Jarling, himself a double Olympic Gold Medallist with the former East Germany, was very pleased with the mini-camp during which the squad clocked up over 120 kilometres on the Corrib.

The Irish rowers have already qualified a Heavyweight Coxless Four for Beijing and currently train in a Four, Pair and Single Scull. The squad is striving to also qualify the Pair and the Single Scull at the final Olympic selection regatta in Poland in late June.

The squad were welcomed to NUI Galway by Vice-President for Physical Resources Keith Warnock, Club Captain Matthew Carroll and Coach Tom Tuohy. Also present to meet the Olympic team were sponsors of NUI Galway's fleet of top-class boats, Tom Forde of the Bank of Ireland and Paul Brennan of Michael McNamara & Company. The eight-man boat used by the squad on the Corrib is sponsored by Seán Stewart of the JSL / Stewart Group.

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