KEY POINTS:
Three rowing world championships or one Olympic gold medal?
No contest says single sculling maestro Mahe Drysdale, the New Zealand athlete with perhaps the best shot at Games glory in Beijing this month.
"At the end of the day the world champs are just practice, just a stepping
stone towards this," Drysdale told NZPA.
"The Olympics are what make you as a rower."
Those comments ring true for anyone on hand after the towering 29-year-old snared his hat-trick of world titles in Munich last August.
Within an hour of victory, Drysdale had demoted his comprehensive win to backwash.
Instead he told journalists about a heightened desire to win in Beijing and match the feat of two-time world champion Rob Waddell, whose 2000 Olympic triumph in Sydney was a career catalyst.
It is ironic that it was Waddell himself who nearly derailed the Drysdale dream when the pair squared off in March in a landmark sporting duel on Lake Karapiro.
A nation was enthralled and world rowing highly curious as Waddell launched his comeback with a direct challenge for Drysdale's singles seat at Beijing.
It is history that Drysdale won the third and deciding race when Waddell's heart condition resurfaced but it doesn't leave the Cambridge sculler any happier now about the ordeal he was put through.
Having qualified his boat at Munich and proved himself as the world's best for three years Drysdale believed his Olympic campaign should never have been threatened.
He was refreshingly honest then and remains so, particularly now that Waddell and Nathan Cohen had forged a potent double sculls pairing that will challenge strongly for Olympic gold themselves.
"I always thought that was the way it should work out," Drysdale says.
"You always had the makings of a fine double there and they are world class, at the moment they are streets ahead of anyone.
"From a selectors' point of view, why not boost another crew rather than have the chance of putting one crew (himself) off the rails and maybe come out with nothing?"
Things got out of control during the media frenzy that surrounded the duel.
One report suggested the Melbourne-born Drysdale would consider rowing for Australia, something he denied at the time and can only smile about now.
"The whole thing with Rob was out of the blue, a bit unexpected," he said.
"But it's certainly made me stronger mentally to get through it and then come back."
Peaking in March didn't seem to affect Drysdale in his two World Cup outings, finishing second in Lucerne before winning in Poznan, Poland.
He was pipped by Czech sculler Ondrej Synek in Switzerland, the man who Drysdale regards as his major rival this month although a swag of the usual names are sure to feature such as German Marcel Hacker, Briton Alan Campbell and Norwegian Olympic champion Olaf Tufte.
Since Europe, Drysdale has been keen to improve his second-half race power, possibly rendered sluggish due to his enforced peak in March.
"But to go away to Europe and still be right up there was very encouraging and put me back on the right track."
He had continued working on his finishing since arriving in Beijing on Sunday, with his mammoth workload only decreasing slightly.
The sports psychologists among the New Zealand Olympic team won't find the 2m-plus frame of Drysdale on their couch.
In his mind, rowing is a solo challenge both physically and mentally.
"I find the pressure something I can deal with myself, you just have to go out and do it. I find that quite easy in rowing," he says.
"You've done all the hard work so you just have to reproduce it."
Drysdale prefers not to look beyond Beijing but hints his career will continue whatever the outcome of the August 16 final.
"Rowing is pretty hard but as long as I'm enjoying it and things go well, I'll probably stay in the sport," he says.
"Everything in my life is completely focused on Beijing and once that's over, I'll sit down and have a think about it and see what lies ahead."
- NZPA
