KEY POINTS:
Former Rowing New Zealand boss Craig Ross sympathises with the plight of Mahe Drysdale but says the cut-throat Olympic selection process was put in place for a reason and should not be compromised.
Ross, who left the organisation in controversial circumstances last year, was at the forefront of
a drive to make "New Zealand the best rowing nation in the world". He was some way towards achieving that goal before he resigned after the board of Rowing NZ was alerted to irregularities in funding documents involving the purchase of Italian boats rather than New Zealand-made boats.
He said the battle between Rob Waddell and Mahe Drysdale was ample evidence of the strength of the sport here but conceded that the high-performance arm of the sport could never have conceived of a situation where a triple world champion might be "tipped out the boat he's made his own".
"The selection policy was implemented prior to my arrival, but I supported that policy," Ross said.
Waddell and Drysdale will effectively race off in a best-of-three series, two trials and the national championships, to decide who gets the single seat for Beijing. Drysdale believes he should be awarded the seat by virtue of his three successive world championships, to avoid a situation where he has to peak twice in a year, a potentially damaging scenario.
"When you look at the larger boats, you get competition for seats but, in a single, to have two of the best single scullers in the world going head-to-head, that's just a situation nobody would have envisaged," Ross said.
Some critics of the process have pointed to a leadership vacuum in the wake of Ross' departure, intimating that the situation should have been dealt with by now.
Ross said he was reluctant to comment on this, given his past in the sport, but did say: "Rowing New Zealand has invested in selectors and they have a selection policy, and that policy is black and white and has to govern this decision.
"However, there is room within those policies for not only objective, but subjective selections.
"This situation will be difficult for everybody. I feel for Rob and Mahe ... but I hope it will be managed."
An interesting precedent may arise should Drysdale proceed to the Sports Tribunal if he misses out on the single sculls selection.
In the women's single sculls, Emma Twigg qualified the boat for the Beijing Olympics but has never beaten Caroline Evers-Swindell, who is the best single sculler in the country.
However, the selectors will overlook that fact to keep Caroline in the doubles with her twin sister Georgina, with the aim of not compromising an almost certain medal in that discipline.
That would give Drysdale the necessary ammunition to prove that rowing selection is subjective, not objective, and that same subjectivity should be used to put a three-time world champion in the singles.
"The fact of the matter is that Rob retired, but has anybody asked the question that if Rob hadn't retired, would Mahe have been three-times world champion? Rob would probably have commanded that position. It's crystal ball stuff for sure, and Mahe could well have been in another boat," said Ross.
"Who knows, he might have to drop out of the boat. It's happened before."
Ross is talking about 1996, when Waddell beat Richard Newey in the trials, after the North Shore rower had qualified the boat. Waddell went on to make the B final in Atlanta.
"Before Athens, the likes of Rob Hellstrom qualified the pair but was tipped out of the boat. The difference was that neither [Ian] Smallman, Hellstrom, or Newey were world champions.
"It's a difficult one, but at the end of the day my professional view is New Zealand needs the fastest man to go to the Olympics. But my personal view is, like many New Zealanders, that Mahe is a three-times world champion, has set his sights on going to the Olympics and never in his wildest dreams expected Rob to return."