The coxless four crew were third at the qualifying regatta in Lucerne, Switzerland, in May.
"I'm just chasing that elusive gold medal on that world stage," he says with a laugh.
Commitment and time are essential if McInnes is to savour that glory. "Patience, too, because you won't get anywhere if you rush it."
Rowing NZ, he says, boasts a great template built on a network of results so the returns from Rio in the next few days should endorse that.
"We have 11 boats out of 14 competing and they have all medalled on the world stage so it'll be a great games and I look forward to watching all the athletes return to share their success stories."
McInnes accepts for him and fellow crew members there will be world cup regattas and world championships annually.
"It's pretty disappointing. We prepared for the worst, hoping for the best," he says.
When the decision came they had pretty much accepted the verdict.
Asked if Russia should be disqualified, McInnes puts it in "the tough" basket.
"I do believe there are clean athletes in there so they should have the right to compete but there obviously was a systematic doping programme, which is a tougher situation."
Effectively they had no choice but to accept the IOC ruling.
McInnes suspects his fellow coxless crew, like him, have 100 per cent commitment.
"It's a four-year cycle so I'm looking at breaking it down to one-year segments so I believe it'll be Tokyo," he says of the next Olympics in 2020.
He lauds Rowing NZ for bringing them back so quickly to prepare for that eventuality.
"They did everything they could for the athletes and the support we got from friends and family was also huge."
McInnes and Logan Roger, of Hamilton, ironically finished fourth at the University World Games in Russia in 2013 as a pairs crew.
"I really enjoyed Russia where it was an eye-opening experience," he says, revealing that games is treated as a tier below the Olympics.
The varsity games village matched Rio so in terms of size, security and food halls he had had a fair dress rehearsal.
"But now my outlook on the Russian system has changed so it's a bitter-sweet pill, I guess."
With the global media churning out countless reports on the Russian debacle, McInnes had chosen to steer clear.
"I think the more you read the more theories you could have so the more opinions you can build," he says, preferring to immerse himself in training at Lake Karapiro for the best conditioning possible over the six weeks.
Based in Cambridge since 2012, he and the crew were recalled into the Rio equation after receiving phone calls and emails pending the IOC's decision on Russia.
"We were in Bali at the time, returning from Europe, having a break," he says. "It was almost a second chance. Once we got back we were straight into fulltime training."
In the first week, they had to adapt to a colder climate here and let the effects of jetlag wear off.
However, working with physios and coaches they knew they weren't going to lose much in terms of endurance so their collective energy was channelled into speed sessions.
"It was good because we were 100 per cent once we got into it so we weren't too far off the pace."
The former HB Saracens U18 rugby lock recalls going to Cambridge to trial for the U21 rowing team but again settling for third/fourth to miss out by a spot.
"After that I stuck at it for another season but missed out on the under-23 team," he says with a grin, happy to represent his country at the University World Games in Russia in 2013 as a Waikato University student.
He says Lake Karapiro offers an ideal environment to measure oneself in an elite system and motivated rowers can gauge their performances.
McInnes was intending to visit his former schools of Maraekakaho Primary, Te Mata Primary (one year) and Havelock North Intermediate to hand out Rowing NZ posters and display his Silver Fern oar this week.
Catching up with former teacher Debbie Gough (cyclist Fraser Gough's mum) is also on the agenda of a protege pursuing, extramurally, a certificate in apiculture (beekeeping) via Telford in Christchurch.
