KEY POINTS:
"You've got to send the best guy. The quickest goes."
Former New Zealand single sculling Olympian Eric Verdonk puts it as simply as that ahead of perhaps the most anticipated head-to-head showdown in the country's Games history.
The national trials begin on Lake Karapiro this weekend. Attention is
centred on the scrap for the single scull seat.
In one lane sits Mahe Drysdale, winner of the last three world titles and, until a few months ago, the shoo-in for the prized seat in Beijing in August.
Alongside him is Rob Waddell, the 2000 Olympic champion who, having done several years aboard Team New Zealand on its last two America's Cup adventures, is back in the boat and eyeing what had seemed Drysdale's spot as of right.
They have raced four times in the last couple of months. Waddell won the first two, with not much to spare, Drysdale won the third race with a bit more up his sleeve, before Waddell trounced the younger man in the national championship final at Lake Karapiro last weekend.
It was an emphatic win and sent a clear signal to Drysdale, if he hadn't picked it up earlier: he's up against it if he wants to fulfil the ambition he has held dear for the last three years.
Verdonk was an outstanding sculler himself, winning the bronze at the Seoul Olympics in 1988, as well as world championship and Commonwealth Games bronzes either side of that.
So what's going through Drysdale's mind ahead of the three-race series which, Rowing New Zealand have consistently maintained, will decide boat selection for Beijing? The message has been clear; all that's gone before is part of the puzzle, but the key is the trials.
"I don't think he'd be coping particularly well," Verdonk said. "There's a lot of factors to say he hasn't been treated fairly. He qualified the boat for Beijing, is the world champion and from the rowing world's perspective was a shoo-in for the seat. But that's not rowing.
"He has to refocus on what he's currently doing to turn the tide. He has to be getting into planning his race strategy; how is his boat feeling and 'what can I do to make this boat click better than it is right now?'"
Verdonk said Drysdale should have been studying footage of both his successes in the past and what went wrong last weekend, frame by frame. He let the battle with Rob overwhelm him as opposed to winning the national champs. You can get into a battle with personalities, who is in the other boat, and lose focus on what makes your boat go fast.
"Rob has put three different strategies on the table [in his wins] and Mahe has been in a position of responding to Rob and not delivering a strategy of his own."
As for Waddell, Verdonk assumes he will be confident, happy with what he has achieved in his comeback to the sport.
"Rob is a very dedicated athlete of the highest proportion. He likes winning.
"He doesn't say much, he'll simply demonstrate on the water that's he's going as fast as he can. He'll be feeling his boat movement is good, that his race strategy wasn't challenged well enough to make any impression."
Verdonk didn't think Waddell's winning row at the national champs was particularly startling - "there was a whole bunch more Rob could have done. He wasn't under pressure to respond to any challenges".
Verdonk won't put himself in either camp but does make a telling observation, more about Drysdale than Waddell.
"The best sculling I've ever seen in my life was the 2007 world championships final. Mahe was poetry in motion.
"From what I've seen so far this season he hasn't matched anywhere near close to that. Mahe's capable of it. The question is how much he wants it."
And then, whatever sympathy Drysdale might get if he misses out, there is the bottom line, as succinctly put by the former Olympian - "the fastest man for the job has to go".
HEAD TO HEAD
ROB WADDELL
Age: 33
World champion: 1998, 1999
Olympic Games: 2000, single scull champion
MAHE DRYSDALE
Age: 28
World champion: 2005, 2006, 2007
Olympics Games: 2004: Coxless four, 5th in final.
WHY ONLY ONE?
* World rowing body Fisa sets the Olympic Games rules.
* It stipulates each country can enter only one boat per discipline.
* Other sports are done on a world qualification basis (e.g. hockey) or by achieving certain standards (e.g. swimming or athletics), where athletes must meet times set by their governing bodies.
