KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's Mahe Drysdale is not panicking after recording a single sculls career-worst fourth placing in Amsterdam.
World champion Drysdale had never previously missed a podium finish in an international event but was not surprised to do so in his first major outing of 2007.
Drysdale was left with too much ground to make up in the second half of the race, clocking 6m 44.95s, more than 4s down on Czech Ondrej Synek's slick winning time of 6m 40.60s.
Second was Norway's Olaf Tufte, with Germany Marcel Hacker third and Drysdale keeping pace but not making any headway in their wake.
It was Drysdale's first race of a European campaign which will culminate with the pursuit of a third consecutive world championships title in Munich in two months.
"I always knew I was going to struggle in this first one. I haven't got the speed I had last year and we haven't done the preparation for racing," Drysdale told Radio Sport.
"I was pretty happy to be right up there. Through that middle 1000m I'm right with them and I've just got a little bit of work to do on that first and last 500m.
"There's a lot of lessons to be taken away and things to fix but it's not like I got absolutely thrashed."
Drysdale said the men's singles sculls had developed into the most competitive class in international racing and he predicted equally tight racing at the next World Cup regatta in Lucerne in three weeks.
He had faith in his ability to find his best form for Munich and would work closely with coach Kelvin Ferguson.
"Hopefully in Lucerne I'll pull my socks up and get back on the podium. For me, I have to find my speed from last year. It's not beyond me." After watching footage of Drysdale's race, Rowing New Zealand high performance manager Andrew Matheson said Drysdale appeared uncomfortable in the boat. "That's something he can work on technically. From all the numbers we've seen, physiologically he's in really good shape."
- NZPA
