KEY POINTS:
It is unlikely there will be any tinkering with the successful world championship crews ahead of next year's Olympics, including the Evers-Swindell combination, says Rowing New Zealand's high performance manager Andrew Matheson.
New Zealand claimed three gold and two silver medals at the world championships in Munich. They also qualified seven boats for next year's Olympics.
Among those who returned home yesterday were Eric Murray and Carl Meyer from the gold medal-winning men's four, Nathan Twaddle and George Bridgewater who claimed silver in the men's pair, and rising stars Emma Twigg, Matthew Trott and Nathan Cohen.
While trials will be held in March to determine which rowers will fill the seats in the Olympic boats it is hard to see the selectors going past those who performed well in Munich.
"All those athletes we know, trust and they worked really hard so it is unlikely that too many will lose their spots," Matheson said. "But all it takes is an injury or a loss in form that can trip them up."
Matheson rubbished claims that Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell, who finished second in the double sculls, would be separated.
"Obviously we have to be smart and look at every option but our successes come from consistency and it is unlikely that we are going to be much different from now in 12 months' time."
While is not uncommon for athletes to perform well in world championships then bomb out in the Olympics Matheson believes the key is the right coaching.
"Often there is the temptation to do a little bit more or a little bit less and that is the skill of the coaches to bring them through. We have got complete faith in our coaches. A lot have been there and experienced the Olympics and been successful."
While Mahe Drysdale claimed his third consecutive single sculls title in Munich, the efforts of the men's four who fought back from last to win will probably be best remembered.
Having watched a replay of the race Murray said he now understood what all the commotion was about.
"We were wondering why a few people were screaming at us 'what the hell are you doing?'. We really only got into it in the last 250m but we were the first across the line so on the day we were the best crew out there," said Murray.
The New Zealand team now have a month off although some will return to the water this weekend for the Boathouse regatta which sees a Waikato University men's eight up against Harvard University, and a Waikato University women's eight up against Melbourne University.
