Rowing: Sonia Waddell prepared for Olympic challenge

The man-made lake at Schinias, a marathon trek from Athens, is exposed and barren, hounded by merciless northerly winds the locals call "meltemia". In the dress rehearsal for the Olympic rowing regatta, boats sank and rowers were tossed overboard.

While the rowing fraternity worries about what havoc meltemia will wreak on the Olympic flotilla come August, Sonia Waddell is unfazed. "I'm ready for anything. You can't go through anything bigger physically, mentally or emotionally than having a baby."

Single sculling is a lonely pursuit, a punishing 2km wrench with the finish-line never in sight. But on the lake at Schinias, Waddell will be pushed along by the two people who inspire her every day. In her head will be words of guidance from her Olympic champion husband, and the face of her little blond daughter, almost 2.

Waddell is a different woman from the one who finished outside the Olympic medals in Sydney but was bathed in the glow of gold held by her husband, Rob, the world's fastest rower. Four years on, she says she is smarter, fitter, less selfish, more relaxed — all because she is now a mother.

She uses her new status to her advantage — on the start-line at Schinias, Waddell will conjure up the face of daughter Sophie. "I'll be nervous, but I'll think of that little face, and know she is the biggest thing in my world; that I'm only doing this because I enjoy it." She's unlikely to be able to hear her, but knows Sophie will be yelling "Mummy row-row!" from the shore.

When Waddell returned to Lake Karapiro soon after her daughter's birth, she felt she no longer belonged. "I'd been away for 18 months, and it felt bizarre — I was a completely different person. I wouldn't train at the same time as the other rowers, and I steered clear of them until I felt I belonged again."

But motherhood hadn't quelled 31-year-old Waddell's drive to win Olympic gold — far from it. Maternal hormones made her body leaner and stronger, and her approach to rowing more clear-cut.

"I used to dwell on a bad training session all day — now I mull things over in the car, step in the door and I'm Mum again. Before, rowing was who I was. Now I consider my identity to be a mother. But it's still important for mothers to have their own goals and dreams."

Waddell once strove to be an international hurdler, winning a five-year athletics scholarship to University of Minnesota, and was there a year before having to quit with stress fractures in both shins. Now her dream is to continue her family's Olympic rowing reputation.

Rob is venturing down new pathways — househusband, celebrity speaker, project manager of their new house in Cambridge, and back on Team New Zealand's sailing crew. He will be in Athens as a television commentator but, says his wife, watch out for an Olympic comeback in 2008.

While the husband does not formally coach the wife, the Waddells discuss the sport constantly. "Other people have to buy books or go to seminars to discuss their problems with an Olympic gold medallist," says Waddell, "but, hey, I'm married to one!"