KEY POINTS:
When Mahe Drysdale's blades cut into the water in mid-afternoon on August 9, it will be the start of the final push to realise a four-year dream.
The heats of the single scull on the Shunyi Olympic course will mark the point of no return for New Zealand's best male gold medal hope at the Beijing games.
Since assuming the single seat in 2005, all Drysdale's energies and considerable focus have gone into one goal.
His ambition to win the gold has consumed him since then and he occupies the rare position _ for a New Zealand athlete _ of starting an Olympic event as favourite.
There are compelling reasons to back Drysdale. In eight World Cup regattas since 2005, he's won three, been second four times and _ the odd one out _ got a fourth in Amsterdam last year shortly after arriving in Europe, not up to his usual competitive edge.
One other small matter: the tall, lean Aucklander has also won the last three world championships.
This year, Drysdale was second in the Lucerne regatta, a week after arriving in Europe, beaten narrowly by Czech Republic sculler Ondrej Synek _ the man Drysdale rates as his toughest rival for gold _ and then won impressively in Poznan, Poland, last weekend.
That gave him considerable satisfaction because he knows he's not at his optimum for this time of year, six weeks out from the regatta which has been on his horizon for four years.
Drysdale admits he was "suffering" in the second half of his races in Europe and he traces that back to events early this year which put a dark cloud over his ambitions.
When Rob Waddell, world champion in 1998 and 1999, and Olympic gold medallist in 2000, decided to return for an crack at his old single seat after seven years grinding for Team New Zealand, Rowing New Zealand opted to have a three-race shootout to sort out the seat.
Drysdale won 2-1, the decider marked by a recurrence of an irregular heartbeat problem Waddell thought was long behind him.
Drysdale was unimpressed with the arrangement at the time and, although he doesn't exactly say so, you get a feeling part of that lingers. It was as if someone had flipped a stick in the spokes of his well-oiled preparations.
The World Cup regattas in the last few weeks helped but "I'm not quite where I want to be with my base work. It's an effect from having to change things back in February.
"To be fair, in some ways it's helped my racing, but it's the aerobic fitness where I'm still a bit behind where I'd usually be."
So that means he's still got some fine tuning to do over the next few weeks, as well as building his top-end speed. He is confident that by the time he arrives in Beijing he will be in "a good place".
This is a good time to be a New Zealand rower.
The sport has the capability to provide New Zealand's best medal haul in Beijing.
New Zealand will line up in eight events. They have medal ambitions in the lot, which is not to say they will win medals everywhere, but the mere fact they can point to each crew and put up a reasonable argument for a podium spot speaks volumes for a sport in rude health.
But when gold is the colour in question, Drysdale _ along with Waddell, who is going gangbusters in the double scull with Nathan Cohen with two cup wins from as many starts this season _ are the strongest candidates.
Drysdale has come a long way from the student who first hopped in a boat as a means of getting a trip to an Easter university tournament.
The old boy of Tauranga Boys High and Auckland Senior College has a graduate diploma in commerce and IT gathering dust. Rowing has been all-consuming of late.
New Zealand sports people have a tendency _ whether through modesty, not wanting to shout the odds or a genuine lack of self-belief _ to play down their chances, to seek the safe territory of the underdog.
But Drysdale, at 29 and in his prime, has no problem with being favourite. He is confident, without going over the top, and knows that if he's viewed as the short-priced favourite then he's doing most things right.
"It's something that when I prepare makes absolutely no difference whether people expect me to win or not," he said.
"That's important. You don't think about it. If I thought `no one can beat me' of course I'm going to get beaten. But as long as you go through your preparation, know what I've got to do from my point of view, that's a great thing."
He pointed out his rivals have not beaten him in rowing's premier event for each of the past three years (world champs are not held in Olympic year).
"They don't know if they can actually beat me," he said of his rivals. "Mentally, they're not absolutely sure and I use it as an advantage. But I realise I have to keep getting better and better. If I hadn't done that I wouldn't still be on top."
Drysdale talked of the need to "reinvent myself every year" and uses the unarguable logic that if he keeps improving each campaign by as much or more than his rivals he'll beat them again. In this sport, stand still and you're toast.
In rowing, the best know who they have to face year after year. There is minimal rotation on the start line at the big events. The same names keep popping up _ in Drysdale's case, Athens Olympic champion Olaf Tufte of Norway is still there; Britain's Alan Campbell, a good mate, is pressing, and Synek, the man who pipped Drysdale in Lucerne at the end of May.
And, over time, rowers can sense the capabilities of their rivals.
Drysdale is not really into visualisation techniques. His focus is the process.
"I've found over the years you never know exactly how things are going to pan out.
"You've got to be ready to react or changes things in a second. I feel I'm very good at figuring out what I have to do."
Nine of the 11 New Zealand rowers who competed in Athens four years ago are back for Beijing. It is, says Drysdale, a tight-knit team, who relish each others' success.
It i "a very good time to be in the sport".
In each of the last three years, Drysdale has managed to perform at his optimum on the key day, in the world final. You can't fault his timing.
Eric Verdonk, bronze medal-winning single sculler at the 1988 Olympics, knows the event inside and out.
"The best sculling I've ever seen in my life was the 2007 world championships final. Mahe was poetry in motion," he said.
Drysdale is buoyed by the knowledge that, hard as it is to ensure all bases are covered on a particular day, he has done it. Repeatedly.
"I do feel confident I can do it and feel I have proved I can. It's just a matter of doing it one more time, putting it all together."
For Drysdale, that time will come at 3.50pm on August 16, on the final startline.
EIGHT IS GREAT
Rowing has 14 events on the Olympic programme.
New Zealand will line up in eight of them _ men's and women's single and double scull, and coxless pairs, men's coxless four and men's lightweight double scull. The other six classes are the eights (men and women), quad scull (men and women), lightweight men's four and lightweight women's double scull.
ON THE PODIUM
New Zealand has won 13 medals in Olympic rowing, beginning with a bronze by single sculler Darcy Hadfield at Antwerp in 1920.
The five golds have gone to the coxed four in Mexico City in 1968 (Dick Joyce, Dudley Storey, Ross Collinge, Warren Cole and cox Simon Dickie); the famous eight at Munich four years later (Tony Hurt, Wybo Veldman, Joyce, John Hunter, Lindsay Wilson, Athol Earl, Trevor Coker, Gary Robertson and Dickie); the coxless four in 1984 at Los Angeles (Keith Trask, Conrad Robertson, Shane O'Brien and Les O'Connell); single sculler Rob Waddell in Sydney in 2000 and Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell (pictured above) in Athens four years ago.
The other silver medallists are Fred Thompson and Cyril Stiles (1932 coxless pair), Dick Tonks, Story, Collinge and Noel Mills (1972 coxless four).
The bronze medallists are the eight of 1976 in Montreal; the coxed fours from Los Angeles in 1984, and the coxed four, single sculler Eric Verdonk and coxless pair Lynley Hannen and Nicola Payne at Seoul in 1988.
FULL STEAM AHEAD
All racing is done on a straight 2000m course, with six lanes for competitors. Rowing comprises sculling (where each athlete pulls two oars simultaneously) and sweep oar (where each has one oar, split half and half on each side of the boat).
SIZE COUNTS
Mahe Drysdale's single scull is 8.2m long and weighs 14kg. The biggest boat on the Olympic programme, for the eight, is 19.9m and weighs 96kg. A sculling oar is 2.98m in length, a sweep oar 3.82m and is made of wood or carbon fibre, and hollow to reduce weight. Oar blades are curved in an effort to reduce water resistance.
