KEY POINTS:
Clichés abound about athletes' dedication to a chosen sport - 99 per cent perspiration, 1 per cent inspiration, or they always give 110 per cent are just two.
However, the determination to succeed for rowers Georgina and Caroline Evers-Swindell is one of the more rare cases of commitment. That's demonstrated by the hundreds of kilometres endured on the water, week to week preparing and competing under the tough eye of veteran coach Dick Tonks - Richard to them.
While the mere mortal may question what Tonks' methods might do to one's sanity, the twins don't. He's their coach, not their friend, and they each have a gold medal from the XXVIII Olympiad to show for it.
Then, there are the hours to bear in foreign hotel rooms, going through the grindingly familiar routine of training, eating and sleeping. (In saying that, both have created hobbies for themselves over the past few years. I'm sworn to secrecy from mentioning what those are, but let's just say it has earned them the nickname The Nanas from teammates.)
Given such dedication, let's rewind to the inconsolable disbelief on their faces on August 26, 2006. That's the day they lost their world championship double sculls crown, a title they had previously won three times. Including gold at Athens, they enjoyed four years of almost complete dominance in their chosen boat.
Dumbfounded commentators and journalists flailed about for new descriptions as if someone had pinched a well-worn script. And two blonde heads sank on the bronze dais as Advance Australia Fair rang out.
Sufficient time has now passed for the twins to reaffirm their desire to continue on the international circuit. It's their 10th season at elite level and their focus on a repeat Olympic title at Beijing remains resolute. The world cup regatta in Amsterdam this week is the start to their seventh season in the double sculls boat.
For Caroline, last season's disappointment is hard to forget but it can always be sourced as motivation.
"When you're training into a head wind in the rain and asking yourself why you are doing it, then you think back to that bronze."
By contrast, it's an experience Georgina's tried to purge.
"It was awful. I've never talked about it with Richard and I've never watched the race. It was just a bad race and this is our first opportunity since to set things right."
There was also the issue last year of swapping Georgina to stroke in the latter stages of the campaign, reversing the gold-medal winning seating arrangement. The decision was understood to have been made to combat Caroline's drastic weight loss after the team's bout of illness in Belgium, but it backfired. The original order has been restored but Georgina says they've had no guarantees it will stay that way.
Tonks said at the time that it made him so frustrated he wanted to hit something, never a promising sign when you're the journalist interviewing him. Now he's more circumspect.
"Back in the old days we'd come to Europe and be happy to make finals but now Kiwi crews come expecting to win or at least be among the medals - there's a higher expectation and the twins are evidence of it," he said.
While it appears all parties have moved on, progress has not been helped by an injury-ravaged build-up to the 2007 season.
First came Georgina's operation in December on what's sometimes known as rower's wrist or tendonitis low down on her left arm. It's the same injury that forced men's double sculler Matthew Trott out of the boat and off to London for an operation on his right wrist last week.
Georgina's injury required a further cortisone injection in April, which kept her out of the boat for about a week. That was at the same time Caroline suffered a stress fracture in one of her ribs, keeping her out for eight weeks.
It's left just a fortnight in the boat together ahead of this opening regatta. That is the longest time ever out of a boat for Caroline, leaving her as a slave to the exercycle.
"It's weird coming away to race in an international regatta and being injury free but not totally fit. All I could do was walk or pedal. I found some good hills around Cambridge."
An unfit Evers-Swindell may be a deceptive phrase for armchair sports fans to comprehend, perhaps an oxymoron, at least where the rigorous training of Tonks is concerned.
"They had a tough week before we left - we pushed them as hard as we could and they came through it well, so hopefully that'll stand them in good stead for this regatta," Tonks said.
So Amsterdam remains a test for the pair's tenacity and base fitness, having not raced together over 2000 metres since March. They won their heat at the Bosbaan and will have raced a semifinal by this morning.
* Semifinals and repechages continue in Amsterdam overnight.
