Poised for Olympic glory on bike and water

By DAVID LEGGAT in Athens

New Zealand is poised to celebrate a golden Olympic medal double this weekend.

The rowing squad has achieved an unprecedented 100 per cent representation in today's finals at the Lake Schinias course on the outskirts of Athens.

They have five cracks at gold, spearheaded by Hamilton twins Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell.

Other medal hopes are Sonia Waddell in the single sculls, George Bridgewater and Nathan Twaddle in the coxless pair, Eric Murray, Carl Meyer, Mahe Drysdale and Don Leach in the coxless four and Juliet Haigh and Nicky Coles in the coxless pair.

Then early on Monday morning, provided she retains the form which made her world 3000m individual pursuit champion and recordholder, Auckland's Sarah Ulmer will go for gold at the cycling velodrome. Her qualifying ride is late tonight.

And both will have Sydney 2000 in mind, for different reasons. The Evers-Swindells narrowly missed qualifying for that regatta. The memory has stung but has provided perfect motivation for glory tonight.

Ulmer did ride bravely in Sydney and finished fourth, beaten by a blink of an eye in the bronze medal rideoff.

She, too, found the experience tough to handle, but knuckled down and is now the favourite - although not as overwhelmingly as the Evers-Swindells - for the title here.

Ulmer has been preparing for her event in France for the last two months with her coach and partner Brendon Cameron, hoping that being away from the spotlight and hype would boost her chances.

Former world champion Beatrice Faumuina, New Zealand's opening ceremony flagbearer, had her discus qualifying round this morning. The final, for which she is a medal longshot, is tomorrow morning.

The Games have been a barren well for New Zealand in the first week. To be fair, the only athletes who could have been considered medal chances were the three-day eventing team, and they finished a decent fifth. But that could all change over the next 48 hours.