Antonio Maurogiovanni bats away question about allegation of ill-treatment at Rowing Ireland AGM

Sean O'Brien of Skibbereen brought up an allegation of ill-treatment of athletes made in a parliamentary question asked in July.

The Italian batted it away calmly. "I do not think it is the appropriate place to talk about this," he said.

Maurogiovanni later told the Irish Independent that selecting athletes was always a difficult thing - if his selection process did not involve some people complaining he would wonder if he was doing it right.

Maurogiovanni confirmed that he wants to lead the Ireland programme going forward and is set to be offered a new contract. The situation will not be finalised until after a review for Rowing Ireland is completed next month.

In his address to the delegates he cited the great successes of Paris 2024, with seven boats qualified for the Olympic Games, two medals and a remarkable ranking.

"Top five in the world, bigger than elephants like France, Australia and Italy," he said.

Ireland also qualified a boat for the Paralympics and won medals at the World Championships in St Catherines, Canada.

Maurogiovanni said that what made him most proud was "to see all the flags, all the (Irish) spectators in the stands at Paris and at St Catherines".

He added that rowing in Ireland needs more professional coaches. His own team will lose two coaches – Fran Keane has returned to teaching and David Breen is going to Australia on a short-term basis. Maurogiovanni would not be drawn on how lightweight coach Dominic Casey might fit into a coaching system going forward.

The new president of Rowing Ireland is Jane Williams. She told the AGM (through Zoom) that she learned her rowing in her native Clonmel.

"When I turned up in Trinity and said I wanted to row, the boys said 'Ladies don't row for Trinity,.'" she said.

She was amongst the founder members of Dublin University Ladies Boat Club, which is coming up on 50 years old. Williams's impressive CV includes working on governance and strategy at a high level, serving on the review group for behaviour in the Defence Forces.

She has a masters degree in psychology from Columbia University and said she hoped to use "her bag of tricks" in the new role.

Neville Maxwell, who stepped down as president, said clubs faced the challenge of finding the resources to deal with a big number of rowers and to be sustainable.

Board chairman Martin Hogan, who said he would also relinquish his role, pointed out that 75 per cent of the membership are under 18 and 65 per cent under 16.

Paul Donovan of Athlone highlighted the disheartening effect it had on athletes who missed out on their chance to compete in the Irish Championships because they were chosen for Ireland duty, or members of their crews were and the crew could not go forward.

Rowing Ireland will soon adopt a new digital registration system. Two motions were passed: offshore and coastal rowing will now be branded as Coastal Rowing in line with international norms and the president will stay in office until the end of the Olympics in the year she or he comes to the end of their term.