KEY POINTS:
Nathan Cohen and Matthew Trott will be looking over their shoulders as their Olympic Games fate hangs on the health and ambition of Rob Waddell.
The pair qualified New Zealand for the double scull in Beijing in August by reaching the final of the world championships at Munich last year.
But Waddell, having lost out in his high stakes single scull shootout with Mahe Drysdale this week, is a chance to take a spot in the double.
So Rowing New Zealand has held off confirming which two athletes will take the boat to Beijing while they have more testing, assessment and discussion.
In Waddell's case, that includes sorting out how best to handle any possible repeat of the irregular heartbeat which cost him dearly in the head-to-head decider with Drysdale at Lake Karapiro on Wednesday.
If Waddell does make the double scull, it will represent a full circle going back to his first Olympics in Atlanta in 1996.
He beat Richard Newey for the singles that year having decided a year earlier to target a solo spot. Among his reasons for that was avoiding potentially harming the chances of others if his heart condition played up on the water. Now he's being considered for a double, after the irregular heartbeat returned at a point when he thought it was in the past.
RNZ officials were tightlipped yesterday on what stage the double scull debate is at, how Waddell's position is being viewed and when a decision will be made.
"We don't do things quickly, but we do them concisely and we felt we had lost two days in the process and need to take our time," RNZ high performance boss Andrew Matheson said, referring to the blown out Tuesday when all on-water trialling was off and Wednesday when Waddell's problem blew up.
Matheson confirmed RNZ had known of Waddell's heart issue for years and have consulted their medical experts on the best course of action.
"A lot of things go into making a small crew work. There are lots of examples round the world of the two best single scullers going together and it doesn't work. I'm not saying that this is the case here at all, but we want to make sure we get the right double."
Five crews were confirmed for Beijing yesterday.
The world champion coxless four from Munich retain their spots, along with the defending Olympic champions Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell in the double scull, former world champion coxless pairs Nicky Coles and Juliette Haigh, and George Bridgewater and Nathan Twaddle. World under-23 champion Emma Twigg, having confirmed the women's single at Munich, also gets the nod.
Twaddle probably spoke for the rest when he talked of the trials process, and particularly for the men, knowing either Waddell or Drysdale would be steered to a different boat.
"Fear can be a wonderful motivator," he said.
"I pretty much treated this summer as if I really had to defend my seat and beat allcomers trying to take it off me at the trials."
Three crews are off to the final qualifying regatta at Poznan, Poland in mid-June, the women's eight, and lightweight double sculls for men and women.
The lightweight women will be Louise Ayling and Candice Hammond and the men are Peter Taylor and Storm Uru, with world lightweight single champion Duncan Grant missing out.
Grant has had injury problems and Taylor and Uru have impressed the selectors, Dick Tonks, Conrad Robertson and Athol Earl. Grant will instead contest the world lightweight champs in Linz, Austria in July.
As for the Evers-Swindells, it's business as usual as they seek back-to-back Olympic golds. At the front of their minds is the Chinese pair that beat them by three seconds at Munich last year.
Rowing team
Women
Double scull: Caroline Evers-Swindell, Georgina Evers-Swindell.
Coxless pair: Nicola Coles, Juliette Haigh.
Single: Emma Twigg.
Men
Single scull: Mahe Drysdale.
Coxless pair: George Bridgewater, Nathan Twaddle.
Coxless four: Hamish Bond, Eric Murray, James Dallinger, Carl Meyer.
Double scull: To be named.
