Irish Rowing came off badly in the new round of funding allocations announced by Minister Shane Ross earlier this week – to help athletes’ preparations ahead of the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Rowing will only receive a top-up of €40,000 from the  €1.75 million allocated for high-performance sports.
Rowing Ireland received €210,000 as the national governing body in 2018, matching the funds they received in 2017. The high-performance arm received €525,000 in 2018, the same as in 2017 despite a record medal haul in Sarasota and an expanded elite squad in 2018.

Rowing Ireland is sending 17 athletes to the World Rowing Championships in Bulgaria next month, that’s 8 more than they sent to Sarasota in 2017.  According to the Irish news title, The Southern Star even at this level of funding athletes have been paying a levy to support their activities:-

• World Cup Regatta €300
• U23 Worlds €800
• Coupe €400
• Junior Worlds €800
• U23 Europeans €600
• Senior camp in Banyoles €300

Whilst levies are pretty typical for athletes at Junior and U23 level members of the Irish senior team have struggled to make international competitions all season. Despite winning a stunning silver medal in Belgrade, sculler Sanita Puspure missed out on World Rowing Cup 2 in Austria as did the O’Donovan brothers.

British Rowing received funding from UK Sport of £30,524,595 for the period 2017-2020.