KEY POINTS:
It might not have attracted the glare of the television cameras or the column inches of the epic Drysdale-Waddell battle but elsewhere on Lake Karapiro an equally dog-eat-dog battle was taking place for Olympic seats in the men's lightweight double.
Two seats, four bums: the math was never going to work and on Friday Graham Oberlin-Brown and lightweight single sculls world champion Duncan Grant had their Olympic dreams shattered. Storm Uru and Peter Taylor, should they race anywhere near their potential at a final Olympic qualification regatta in Poland, will instead be brushing up on their Mandarin.
"Last year, to be honest with you, I was pretty devastated not to make the double for the world championships," Uru said. "After losing to Duncan in Lucerne [in the non-Olympic class singles] I decided to make it a good year I'd have to make it into the double."
Rowing New Zealand makes much of the collegiality of the high-performance programme but Uru admits, with the spectre of missing the Olympics, it was a tough summer for the four.
Grant, in particular, cast a downbeat figure at the naming of the team. After the pairing of Oberlin-Brown and Taylor struggled in Europe last season it was widely expected that Grant would take one of the seats, with Taylor and Uru battling it out for the second. However, Rowing New Zealand high performance director Andrew Matheson said injury and illness meant Grant was "not in the shape he would have liked" and suffered in comparison.
Taylor beat Uru by .4s in the single at the nationals and Uru said that the two of them were so competitive, it was no wonder the double went fast.
Uru and Taylor will attempt to qualify the boat at Poznan, Poland later this year.
