KEY POINTS:
MUNICH - New Zealand's elite rowers confront their Olympic aspirations head on when the world championships enter the semifinal stage here tomorrow.
Seven of the eight crews in action on the Oberschleissheim course can book a berth for their boat at Beijing next year simply by finishing in the top half of their race.
In every case a top-three finish will win a place in the A final and, given the evidence on show from the New Zealand contingent this week, all seven will mount strong challenges.
That includes surprise packet Emma Twigg, the 20-year-old from Napier, who is more than holding her own against the world's premier single scullers.
Blessed with a mature outlook to match her enormous talent, Twigg admits tomorrow will provide her first true test of competition at the highest level because there had been ample foxing through the heats and quarterfinals.
"I'd like to think that I could qualify for the Olympics but the semifinals will be very cut throat," she said.
Another crew punching above their weight are Nathan Cohen and Matthew Trott, who sent shockwaves through the double class field by pushing former Olympic champions Slovenia close in yesterday's quarterfinals.
They convincingly outpaced Estonia, the form crew of 2007.
Olympic qualification requirements vary in each class.
Twigg needs to finish in the top nine, meaning if she missed out on the A final, she would chase a top-three place in the B final.
Double scull twins Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell require a top-eight finish to ensure they will be in Beijing to defend their Olympic crown, as do pair Juliette Haigh and Nicola Coles.
That criteria should be met in straightforward fashion by the two women's duets, who both claimed minor medals at last year's world championships after striking gold in 2005.
A top-11 finish is the goal for the four men's crews tomorrow, meaning they are practically Beijing-bound already.
There are bigger fish to fry this week for two-time champion single sculler Mahe Drysdale, the pair of Nathan Twaddle and George Bridgewater and the four of Carl Meyer, James Dallinger, Eric Murray and Hamish Bond.
All are firmly in the medal hunt and Twaddle openly admits he and Bridgewater have always been banking on making it to Beijing.
So much so that they have experimented with their boat setup and oars this year to have them ship-shape for the Olympics.
"We've been looking for every edge we can, to get every ounce of speed out of ourselves," Twaddle said.
"We want to find out this year what works for us best as a combination, we don't want to go into an Olympics still playing with things."
The eighth New Zealand crew on the water tomorrow is lightweight single sculler Duncan Grant, whose sole focus this week is on a medal because his class isn't in the Olympics.
- NZPA
