# ROWING: Sanita Puspure is the Afloat Rower of the Year for 2012. Puspure made the A Final as a single sculler at World Cup Regattas in Belgrade and Munich and did wonderfully well to qualify as the sole Ireland rowing representative at the Olympic Games. In the Olympic Qualification Regatta at Lucerne she claimed the fourth and final place, pushing Iva Obradovic of Serbia, one of the favourites, into fifth. The three women who finished ahead of Puspure cut a dash at London 2012: Denmark’s Fie Udby Erichsen took silver; Kim Crow of Australia took bronze (in addition to a silver in the double sculls); America’s Genevra Stone won the B Final. Puspure’s position was destined to be in the 11 to 13 ranking and she was unlucky first to suffer illness in the run up to the Games and then to be drawn in a difficult quarter-final which saw her lose out narrowly on a place in the A/B Semi-Finals, the top 12. She won the C Final convincingly to place 13th. After the race she spoke of looking forward to climbing the rankings in this discipline and of targeting Rio 2016. Her steeliness in key races and her very good form in the recent National Assessment suggests that the 30-year-old could be a rower to watch in this Olympiad.

Rower of the Year: The judging panel is made up of Liam Gorman, rowing correspondent of The Irish Times and David O'Brien, Editor of Afloat magazine.

#CANOEING - Irish canoe slalom paddler Matthew Sykes has secured a place on the Olympic torch relay this summer.

“I am only one of only 8,000 people selected to carry the London 2012 Olympic torch relay," the Northern Irishman told IrishCanoeSlalom.com. "It was a lovely surprise to find out that I was going to carry the Olympic torch.

"To be the first deaf person in Northern Ireland to be chosen is a real privilege and I think it will be a great experience.

"I think it will be a great day when the torch comes to this country and I am sure everyone will be down there to watch so it will be a good experience.”

Sykes will carry torch in Dundonald on 3 June. More details will be available soon on Sykes' website at www.matthewsykes.co.uk/news

As previously reported on Afloat.ie, the Olympic torch relay begins in Plymouth on 19 May and finishes at the Olympic Stadium on 27 July, and includes a visit to Dublin on Wednesday 6 June.

#OLYMPICS 2012 - The RNLI will play a "key role" during the Olympic torch relay ahead of the London games this summer, as Yachting and Boating World reports.

On 28 May the Olympic torch is set to visit Anglesey in north Wales, when it is taken along the Menai Strait on board the RNLI's Annette Mary Liddington.

The torch will again be carried by RNLI volunteers on 18 July when it is ferried to shore from a tall ship in Dover harbour aboard the all-weather lifeboat City of London II.

Dover RNLI's operations manager Roy Couzens said: “We are very much looking forward to being involved on the day – and believe me, when that torch is at sea in our lifeboat, it couldn’t be in safer hands!”

The Olympic torch relay begins in Plymouth on 19 May and finishes at the Olympic Stadium on 27 July. Its two-month-long journey will take it throughout Britain and Northern Ireland, and includes a visit to Dublin on Wednesday 6 June.

An interactive map of the complete torch relay route is available on the official London 2012 website HERE.

#CANOEING - The Evening Herald reports that top Irish canoeist Jenny Egan is headed to Florida for a few months of training towards a spot at the 2012 Olympics.

A sprint and marathon racer, Egan was named as The Irish Times/Irish Sport Council's Sportswoman of the Month for May 2010 in recognition of some very impressive performances.

Indeed, the Kildare native enjoyed much success in 2012, with second place in the 5000m at the World Sprint Cup in the Czech Republic and a new Irish record in the 500m at the Canoe Slalom Worlds in Hungary among her achievements.

Heading into 2012, the Salmon Leap club member will surely be shrugging off setbacks like her crash in the heat and humidity of Singapore at the Canoe Marathon Worlds last October.

The new year brings a new focus, as Egan will concentrate on the 500m and 200m K1 sprint distances for the London games, with the final qualifiers - for just 15 spots - taking place in Poland in April.

The Evening Herald has more on the story HERE.

Lisa Dilleen and Sanita Puspure finished sixth in the B Final of the double scull at the World Rowing Championships in Bled in Slovenia this morning, missing out on a chance to qualify the boat for the Olympic Games next year.

Only the top two boats (places seven and eight overall) were guaranteed a place at London 2012. Germany won the race by leading virtually all the way and China took the second qualification spot by taking out the United States in the second 1,000 metres. Ireland were in touch at 500 metres but could not keep contact with the head of the field.

 In the most dramatic race of the day, Germany lost the men's quadruple sculls gold to Australia virtually on the line when Lauritz Schoof missed a stroke as the Germans were leading. Britain won their first gold in an Olympic event through Anna Watkins and Katherine Grainger in the women's double, but New Zealand took the men's pair, leaving Britain in second, and the men's single scull, where Mahe Drysdale regained his crown. Coleraine's Alan Campbell took bronze.

World Rowing Championships, Bled, Slovenia – Day Seven (Selected Results)

Men

Pair – A Final: 1 New Zealand 6:14.77, 2 Britain 6:16.27, 3 Italy 6:21.33.

Quadruple Sculls – A Final: 1 Australia 5:39.31, 2 Germany 5:39.56, 3 Croatia 5:42.82.

Single Sculls – A Final: 1 New Zealand (M Drysdale) 6:39.56, 2 Czech Republic (O Synek) 6:40.05, 3 Britain (A Campbell) 6:44.86.

Women

Four – A Final: 1 United States 6:30.30, 2 Australia 6:31.18, 3 Netherlands 6:34.06.

Lightweight Quadruple Scull – A Final: 1 Britain 6:28.14, 2 China 6:30.41, 3 United States 6:33.91.

Double Scull – A Final: 1 Britain 6:44.73, 2 Australia 6:45.98, 3 New Zealand 6:46.74. B Final (Places 7 to 12; first two boats qualify for Olympic Games 2012): 1 Germany 6:57.43, 2 China 6:58.41, 3 United States 6:59.83, 4 Finland 7:04.51, 5 Serbia 7:05.75, 6 Ireland (L Dilleen, S Puspure) 7:13.92.

Adaptive

Legs, Trunk and Arms Mixed coxed Four – A/B Semi-Final (First Three to A/B Semi-Final; rest to B Final): 1 Germany 3:30.78, 2 Ireland (A-M McDaid, S Caffrey, S Ryan, K du Toit; cox: H Arbuthnot) 3:32.63, 3 United States 3:32.98; 4 China 3:35.66, 5 Italy 3:41.51, 6 Russia 3:45.79.

Ireland's four Olympic canoeing hopefuls were invited to take part in an Olympic test event to mark one year till the start of next summer's games, The Irish Times reports.

Eoin Rheinisch and Ciarán Heurteau in men’s K1 joined Hannah Craig and Aisling Conlan in women’s K1 to compete in closed-door elimination rounds at Lee Valley Whitewater centre on Thursday.

The event mirrors the format of next year’s Olympic Games, so the field of 52 competitors in the K1 men's competition were set to be reduced to 21 for today's finals.

Rheinisch – who finished fourth in Beijing three year ago – made positive comparisons between the man-made course in north London and the Chinese venue.

Delegates attending the World Yacht Racing heard calls for change, modernity and new ways of thinking. These were the main themes at the heart of the conference, which concluded yesterday in Estoril, Portugal.

The forum also discussed topics on new media, host cities, sustainable development, the America's Cup and the Olympic Games. The overall consensus arising from the forum concluded that this was a time of transition and there was a need to adapt.

"Sailing is like the Himalayas, there are many 8000 summits: the Cup, the Vendée Globe, the Olympic Games... all of them are difficult to achieve and very different from each other", said Loïck Peyron, the veteran global ocean racer and multi-hull skipper.

"The America's Cup is the perfect illustration following last springs' schism: we all share the same God but not the same religion." he added during his keynote speech.

In order for yacht racing to grow the sport requires ways to find cost effective strategies to grow new audiences via TV and new media. For information about the principle speakers including Maria Ferreras, Head of Partnerships for YouTube, click here . For further details from the conference logon to www.worldyachtracingforum.com/index.html

ISAF President Göran Petersson set out the challenges ahead as he delivered his opening address, the President's Report, to the ISAF Council members during their first day of meetings at the 2010 ISAF Annual Conference held in Athens, Greece this week. Some of it has relevance to the sport here in Ireland given Dublin Bay is the host for the 2012 ISAF Youth Worlds and indeed the annual conference in the same year. The full transcript of the President's Report is below....

'Your Majesty, Ladies and Gentlemen, Members of the Council

After a number of Council meetings with relatively light agendas we now have a fairly lengthy agenda for this meeting so I will keep this opening short.

We will hear, as usual, reports about the events that took place this year later in the agenda.

At this point I would like to highlight the success of the first Youth Olympic Games that were held in August in Singapore. Although Teo-Ping is absent I would like to thank him very much; to thank his team and to thank the Singapore Sailing Federation.

We should be proud and happy for our good friend, former Vice-President of ISAF, Ng Ser Miang, who was the Chairman of the Organizing Committee. This event is here to stay. The IOC will evaluate the Youth Olympic Games in the near future together with the sports federation, but we already know this event will be repeated because the next venue will be in China. I am sure, however, that this event will remain on the programme for the IOC.

It was very interesting to see how some sports took this event as an opportunity to showcase their sport in a new and exciting way. It was clearly demonstrated, that there was a lot of thinking outside of the box by all the sports.

For example basketball was played with teams of three on three with two competitions running on the same court at the same time. This fast paced game was played on a half court using only one or the same hoop for both teams. The stadium was a temporary structure and the scene was supposed to resemble street basketball and the public enjoyed watching the game whilst listening to loud pop music.

Canoe/kayak saw head to head sprint racing on a new figure of eight course and triathlon had mixed gender team relays. Actually quite a few sports had, interestingly enough, mixed gender events or mixed gender relay events.

The sailing events were a great success and I have a few observations: First of all, ISAF chose to go for the younger age group. As you remember we had to choose an age group of two birth years under eighteen. We chose the age group 15 and 16 and were one of only three sports that chose this age range which I feel was highly appreciated by the IOC. The choice of equipment for this age range was excellent. The transfer to the Byte CII was absolutely no problem for the young sailors, and this was something that we were concerned about.

Particular highlights for me though were the lighting of the flame by the Sailor Darren Choy from Singapore and, of course the Thai windsurfing girl, Siripon Kaewduang-Ngam, who won gold winning seven out of the eleven races. It was very good to see her nominated for the ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year Awards.

I would like to now highlight some areas the Federation has been working on that perhaps do not get as much attention from the Council because they do not involve submissions.

The Environment
Much work has already been done by many of our MNAs. ISAF will now develop three products that may be helpful for the world of sailing on the environmental front. Firstly, we will produce sustainable Events Guidelines for event organizers on implementing green measures. The guidelines are not only for sailing event organizers but can be used as a template for MNAs to translate and implement for use in their own countries.

Secondly, as you know, ISAF already has an Environmental Code, but the responses received indicate that the document may be a little too rigid. Work will be undertaken to improve the Code and develop it to be the 'ISAF Code of Environmentally Friendly Behaviour'. The aim is to approach issues in an accessible and positive way.

Thirdly, ISAF already has a lot of training material for different areas, Race Management Manuals, the Judges Manuals, Training Material and so on and there is a clear opportunity for us to include the care of the environment in these sorts of publications. We will ensure that an environmental paragraph will be included in all publications. Thank you Teresa for driving this important subject forward and if anyone has any questions or suggestions, I would suggest that you talk to Teresa.

Training
This year has seen many exciting developments in the area of Training and Development and we have all seen the benefit that these programs have in the relationship, that ISAF has with its Members through the ISAF news and the new social networking and channels that have been used to drive our message home to the wider global audience.

We have seen ISAF run Technical Courses for Coaches across a diverse number of its Member Nations with Iceland, Oman, South Africa, Cayman Islands, Indonesia, Qatar, Trinidad and Tobago, Myanmar, El Salvador, Morocco and Sudan all successfully applying for and hosting Olympic Solidarity funded Level 1, 2 and 3 Courses. The ISAF Instructors will have trained in excess of 100 Learn-to-Sail Coaches from over 15 countries this year. The total number of ISAF organized and IOC funded Technical Course for Coaches that ran between 2005 and 2009 was just five. With eleven such courses run in 2010 alone ISAF has been gaining a good reputation within Olympic Solidarity for helping its member's access this funding. Closer links with our NOCs is vital to help this development continue.

2010 has also seen ISAF become only the sixth International Federation to host a Sport Specific Scholarship for Coaches. This unique 8 week Course was piloted in February this year with a candidate from South Africa and after a presentation to the IOC to get official status, the first formal Training Scholarship course finished at the end of October with four National Training Managers and Youth Development officers from Turkey, South Korea, the Cook Islands and Peru joining together in a common aim, to learn how to run and manage all aspects of a National Sail Training Program. With 2 courses planned per year, we are currently taking applications for a maximum of 6 per course and have nearly filled one course already. The IOC has been very supportive of this Course and is working closely with our Training Manager to help ISAF's MNAs stand as good a chance as possible of gaining funding to enable participation.

The Executive Committee fully acknowledges the tremendous work of the Training Commission to set up these programs and its valuable guidance to our new Training Manager in their implementation. Without the hard work of the Training Commission this would not have been possible. As the Commission successfully reached the targets that they were set and have given the Training Department the tools to be able to take over, the Executive decided to disband the Commission re-focusing parts of its role to the Development & Youth Committee, under the guidance of former Training Commission member, Olivier Bovyn. Other responsibilities have been passed on to Vice President in charge of Development, Nazli Imre who, working with the Staff, can now monitor these new programs and move forward to work on the targets laid out in the ISAF Strategic Plan.

This conference is a great chance for all of us to observe at first hand the interest that this valuable contribution is generating amongst our members. The Connect to Sailing Seminar is once again giving practical, specific, simple advice to those that wish to work with ISAF to build a stronger sailing future and the list of our MNAs that are coming onboard is getting longer every day. I am excited to see how this will continue to develop into the future.

Now I would like to turn to the agenda and the meeting that is in front of us. I am sure you have all studied the papers carefully and you will have noticed some very important issues have been put in front of you. It is important to see the ISAF Olympic Event and Equipment submissions in the overall scheme of the Commission's findings. Some important points have been put forward as submissions now because of the time scales involved, and we have to deal with them now.

Council members; you are now in the position of being able to shape the future of sailing. You have been given the options and you have been given an outline of the issues with the background information. You need to set the policy and the direction for the future.

I would like to thank all of you who have given feedback on the Olympic Commission report and I would like to thank the Olympic Commission on the work they have done to review all the comments both general and from the Executive Committee meeting that was held in July. We will hear later from Phil Jones, the Chairman of the Commission, about the progress and the work that was done after May. You will have also seen as a supporting paper, a second report, outlining some additional information along with an explanation and background to the submissions that you have in front of you. '

For more on the 2010 ISAF Annual Conference, including news, interviews with some the key players, meeting papers and more go to www.sailing.org/meetings

The National Yacht Club's Annalise Murphy (Laser Radial) travelled to Australia last weekend for the Perth International Regatta http://www.perth2011.com/ which starts on the 16th of this month. The aim is to gain valuable experience at the venue which will host the December 2011 ISAF World Championships and which will be a vital qualifying event for the the 2012 London Olympic games.

Also heading for Perth is the Royal St. George's Ben Lynch in the high speed 49er dinghy.

After Perth, Annalise travels to Melbourne for the season's first ISAF World Cup event which will be run from Sandringham Yacht Club from 12-19th December. Annalise is currently ranked 20th Womens Laser Radial sailor and 1st under 21 in the World and is campaigning full time to represent Ireland in the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Top youth Laser Radial Sailor Ross Vaughan from the Royal North of Ireland YC has gone down as a training partner for Annalise together with her coach Rory Fitzpatrick.

Also taking part in the Perth Regatta are Irish 49er team of Ryan Seaton and Matt Mc Govern (Ballyholme YC) and Ross Hamilton from the RIYC, Dun Laoghaire.