Under-23 World Rowing Championships are being held in Varese, Italy

Rowing Ireland is pleased to announce the crews who will compete at the Under-23 World Rowing Championships, being held in Varese, Italy, from 23rd to 27th July.

Denise Walsh will compete in U23 scull. Walsh who is 22 years old competed in the same event last year, finishing sixth. Denise has been competing more recently in a newly formed lightweight double scull with Claire Lambe. They finished in 5th position in the B final in their first outing two weeks ago at World Cup II in Aiguebelette. Denise rows for Skibbereen Rowing club and is in her final year of studying Economics and Geography at UCC.

Paul O'Donovan finished in third place in U23 lightweight men's scull in Linz, Austria in 2013. Having started rowing at junior level and coming from a strong family of rowers, with his Father Teddy involved in Skibbereen rowing Club. Paul rowed himself since the age of seven. And now rows for UCD. In the recent World Cup II regatta in Aiguebelette Paul won the B final.

Paul's brother Gary will compete in the Men's lightweight double, together with fellow Skibbereen man Shane O'Driscoll. Gary, is passionate about the sport 'My father always had an interest in rowing and he would bring myself and Paul to a lot of rowing events before we started rowing, which we enjoyed a lot,' Gary recalled. When I was 10 years old, he brought me and Paul rowing for the first time. Since then we have never stopped. Shane O'Driscoll who was in Gary class in school started rowing shortly afterwards and they have rowed together since.

We were always very competitive athletes in races and in training. We would turn every training session into a race. 'For us when we were small, all we wanted to do was beat the senior athletes in the club. Now that we have become the senior athletes in Skibbereen, the younger rowers want to beat us in training, and the competitive atmosphere continues.

The experienced Men's four from Galway will be hoping for a good result. Many of the crew have rowed since they were at junior level and have a great deal of expertise in the field. Bennett and O'Callaghan competed in last year's U-23 World Championships, where they obtained 9th place. McQuillan-Tolan recently lined out in Boston College top 8+ at the Eastern Sprint regatta. Tolan started rowing at St Joseph's College and won three Junior Championships with them.

This regatta will prove to be a very interested one with many of the competitors nearing their final year of competing in it, but with that they will bring great deal of experience.

The team are as follows:

WL1x Denise Walsh (Skibbereen RC) ML1x Paul O'Donovan (UCD)
ML2x Gary O'Donovan (CIT RC) Shane O'Driscoll (Skibbereen RC)
M4- Fionnain McQuillan-Tolan (Grainne Mhaol RC), Richard Bennett (NUIG BC), Robert
O'Callaghan (NUIG BC) & Kevin Neville (NUIG BC).