KEY POINTS:
Experimentation is over for New Zealand kayaker Ben Fouhy, who leaves early to Europe tomorrow for the pivotal part of his Olympic Games buildup.
Fouhy is a strong medal prospect as he was at Athens four years ago when he was beaten into silver in the K1 1000m by Norwegian Eirik Veras Larsen.
The Taumarunui paddler is driven to go one better in Beijing in August and has dabbled with all manner of training and competition techniques to eke more speed out of his craft.
With the aid of new coach and Olympic kayaking great Paul MacDonald, Fouhy has filtered the best elements.
The results may begin to show at three World Cup regattas in Europe through June.
"The last three years I've done a lot of experimentation and at times I've had some fantastic performances and some performances I'd rather not remember," Fouhy said.
"This year I've put all that knowledge together, combined them with what I did in 2004 and rolled it all into one package.
"At the moment I'm fit and strong. I'm not super-fast just yet but that's what I'm going to be working on between now and the Games."
One change from previous years is that Fouhy will leave earlier than usual to Europe, arriving at the New Zealand team base in Szeged, Hungary 2-1/2 weeks ahead of the first World Cup.
"Last year I wasn't there early enough, which put me on the back foot and I never really made up that lost ground."
His training mileage is dropping so Fouhy finds it hard to predict how he will perform at the World Cups in Hungary, Germany and Poland.
His leading rivals will all be at different stages of Olympic preparation.
"It's important to all of us that the emphasis is geared towards Beijing," he said.
"But it will also give an indication of how you're going - I'll try to do as well as I can in Europe without compromising what we can do in Beijing."
Three-time Olympic gold medallist MacDonald believes Fouhy, 29, is poised to return to the form that saw him win the world championship crown in 2003 and come within a whisker of glory at Athens a year later.
However, he is keen to keep expectations from diverting his charge from a focused course.
"Everyone's asking, is Ben going to win? And that's a pressure question," MacDonald said.
"In the single, there are 6-8 guys there who are hot property and they're all going to be fighting it out.
"We've got to get our tuning right, our form right and our heads right. You look sideways at the wrong time on the day, then it's all over, that can be the race."
Fouhy's Olympic teammates are K2 1000m pair Mike Walker and Steven Ferguson - who will also contest the K1 500m - along with Erin Taylor in the K1 500m, the first woman kayaker to represent New Zealand at an Olympics.
Fouhy had a lot of time for what Taylor, 20, has achieved in emerging from a controversial sudden death race and re-run to qualify recently in Sydney.
"She's a really, really nice person who's worked extremely hard," he said.
"It's such a difficult sport for people to qualify in and the fact that she's the first woman to do it shows how tough it is.
"She obviously knows how to handle pressure and that's the important thing that you need to go well throughout your career."
The New Zealand team will spend the last five weeks of their Beijing buildup training in the warm North Queensland climes of Rockhampton.
- NZPA
