KEY POINTS:
On August 13, Moss Burmester should be standing on the blocks along with the world's greatest swimmer and six other men challenging for an Olympic medal.
Should be, if the list of the world's best performers this year in the 200m butterfly mean anything.
And that's the thing about rankings _ they give you indicators on which projections can be made. But they are far from everything.
This year the fastest swimmer in the event _ Burmester's premier discipline _ is Michael Phelps. He clocked 1m 53.31s at the Missouri Grand Prix in Columbia last February.
He was dawdling compared with his staggering display at the world championships in Melbourne early last year, when he roared up and down the pool in 1:52.09, winning one of his seven golds with a stunning 3s to spare.
Behind Phelps are a cluster of swimmers with little more than a stretch of the fingers between them.
And this is where the pecking order comes in.
Burmester's best time this year, 1:54.99 achieved at New Zealand's Olympic trials last March, places him seventh among the contenders.
The second quickest this year is Greek Ioannis Drymonakos with 1:54.16, one of three times better than Burmester to be achieved at the European championships in the Netherlands in March. So, taking the phenomenal Phelps out of the equation, the Olympic final in Beijing would shape up as a doozy _ just .83s covers the six fastest swimmers this year behind the 23-year-old from Baltimore. (Eighth fastest overall is the disgraced Australian Nick D'Arcy, thrown out of the Games over his violent attack on another swimmer this year).
What the times say about 27-year-old Burmester is that he's right in the frame, no more but also no less. The best athletes in any individual sport are those who are able to blend their considerable physical talents with being in the right mental state at the precise moment it is required.
Three events in the last two years give considerable encouragement to the swimmer rated New Zealand's best medal hope in Beijing.
First he won the gold at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in March, 2006 in a Commonwealth record, a personal best 1:56.64, with a tactically shrewd display which blitzed his rivals.
Last year, in the same pool, Burmester finished fourth, 0.13s out of third place, with another personal best of 1:55.35. It was a New Zealand record, eclipsing the mark he had set in the semifinal and became the first New Zealander to dip under 1m 56s.
Fast forward to the world short course championships in Manchester last April. Burmester won the gold and his personal best 1:51.05 was just 0.32s off the world record.
His coach Jan Cameron was effusive at the time.
"If you're making the finals here, you're in the world-class bracket. If you're winning them, then it's another story altogether," she said.
Much of Burmester's life has involved water. He has also represented New Zealand in underwater hockey and surf lifesaving.
At five, he swam 50m in a Rotorua pool. He joined the Otumoetai club in Tauranga and hooked up with the highly regarded coach Clive Power. Burmester spent 10 years with Power before taking the plunge and joining Cameron's high-calibre operation at the North Shore's Millennium centre before the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
Events in Melbourne last year and Manchester three months ago have enhanced the belief that Burmester is on track again.
"There's a feeling you get, when you realise you are one of the best in the world and people will be looking out for you all the time. It's a good feeling," Burmester said.
And what of those rankings? Are they a fair reflection of where he's sitting right now?
"I guess it is fair. Those are people's best times and on race days it's different.
"Some people handle pressure better and step up to the big events and some don't. I feel I'm one of those who does seem to perform on the big day."
Burmester believes the final, assuming all the anticipated suspects are there, will be close.
Phelps is trying to eclipse by one Mark Spitz's record seven gold medals from Munich in 1972. He got six in Athens and has a full card of work ahead in Beijing.
In the 200m butterfly final, he will be striving for his fourth gold of the meet, if he's already secured the 400m individual medley, 4 x 100m freestyle and 200m freestyle titles.
After last year's worlds, Burmester and Cameron spent time at the US Olympic training centre in Colorado Springs. It gave Burmester a chance to study the most dominant swimmer on the planet at close hand.
In training terms, he discovered New Zealand's best swimmers are making all the right moves. And of Phelps ...
"He's a nice guy. We got on," he said. "We talked. I'd say we're friends but not great friends, because we're still competitors as well, so we're always going to see each other in that light."
The finals in Beijing will be in the mornings, instead of the usual evenings, courtesy of American television demands.
No big deal, says Burmester, who reasons "it just means getting up earlier in the morning and make sure the body is awake properly. It's the same for everyone".
Burmester will have family and friends in the stands.
His parents, Bronwen and Greg, will be in Beijing too.
He is happy with training, with what has been achieved and his state of preparedness four weeks out.
The heats and semifinals must be handled first. But Burmester is in the hunt. He is quietly confident.
If he's done the work, ticked all the boxes, it will all be about seizing the day.
