KEY POINTS:
BEIJING - Ian Ferguson would love nothing more than to jump back into a kayak tomorrow morning and paddle like it's a lifetime ago.
It will be 24 years and 13 days since he won the first of his four Olympic gold medals, in the K1 500m sprint at Los Angeles.
So when he watches son Steven contest the same race at the Shunyi course here the emotions will not just be those of a coach satisfied that his athlete has finally made the grade.
"It's going to be damned hard. Just for me, I'm a bundle of nerves because I can't get out and start warming up myself," he said.
"But I've just got to relax and watch and wait and just hope."
His strapping son - Steven is considerably taller than Ian in the 1980s - was to also race the K2 1000m final today with Mike Walker.
It proves he has inherited the versatility of Ian, whose other golds came in the K2 500m and K4 1000m in Los Angeles before defending the K2 500m crown with Paul MacDonald in Seoul four years later.
However, a suggestion to the usually upbeat Steven this week that his father's legacy is driving him was thrust aside in an uncharacteristically blunt way.
It has been that way ever since he switched from being an Olympic swimmer eight years ago.
"I don't even think about that, I like to focus on myself," he said.
"What dad did was a phenomenal effort. If I can get even close to him, that would be great for me.
"(But) I'm just looking forward to the challenge of the final."
While Steven's year has been flawless in terms of preparation, Ian still arrived in Beijing hoping to see an improvement in his racing.
It has come, with his brilliant semifinal win over 500m yesterday the surest sign yet that he is mastering his craft.
"He's finally got it bloody right," Ian said.
"He's got a habit of looking sideways, checking things out and worrying a bit.
"You don't worry about them, you can't change them, you can't slow them down. All you can do is just go past them and he did that."
Ian's main job on race morning is more to be father than coach.
By that stage, patrolling for butterflies is more useful than imparting any late tactical advice.
"I'm always there with him, helping him, making sure," he said, .
"Nerves can slowly drag the adrenaline out of you. You get to a race and the gun goes and you can have no adrenaline left, it's all sapped out of your body.
"When you're about to race, then you want the nerves."
- NZPA
