Rowing: Going for gold

Mahe Drysdale will be chasing his fourth successive world single scull title. Photo / Getty Images

Mahe Drysdale's thoughts are on London, not Beijing.

Victory tonight in the world championship single scull final will be part one of his plan to be at the top of the dais at the Olympics in 2012, not third where he stood in China last year, having dominated his discipline for the previous three years only to be struck down by infection at the worst possible time.

And while he hasn't forgotten the trauma of Beijing or the shattering physical toll that race took on him, Drysdale is focusing forwards, not peering over his shoulder.

"I've looked at what happened, looked at the good and bad things that came out of it, and now I've moved on," he told the Herald from Poznan, Poland, yesterday ahead of tonight's finals programme.

"This is the start of a new cycle and I'm looking more at London. Having said that, it gives me a little bit of added motivation."

Drysdale has won all his races this season in Europe. Indeed the only notable race he has not won since 2005 was the Beijing final.

He is the strongest gold medal chance of the six New Zealand crews in finals tonight, a programme in which once again the silver fern is as prominent as any other rowing nation.

Drysdale will line up against familiar rivals. Olympic gold and silver medallists Olaf Tufte of Norway and Czech Republic's Ondrej Synek are in the field, along with Britain's Alan Campbell and Belgian Tim Maeyens. They must get sick of the sight of each other across the lanes, but Drysdale will be the sculler the others know they must beat.

"I had a pretty good run over the course (in his semifinal win early yesterday NZT) and I'm pretty happy with where I'm standing. We all line up level at the start, but I'm confident I'm going in fighting for the gold," Drysdale said.

In the three years between the Athens Olympics of 2004 and Beijing, New Zealand won a remarkable eight gold medals, four silver and three bronze.

Besides Drysdale, new coxless pairs Hamish Bond and Eric Murray - formerly of the world champion-winning four of 2007 - and Emma Feathery and Rebecca Scown are big hopes. Both have dominated their events in Europe.

Bond and Murray will start alongside their strongest rivals, Britain's Andrew Triggs-Hodge and Peter Reed, with little between them, but the New Zealanders have had the wood on the British pair so far when it has mattered.

The women, who have raised experienced eyebrows all year with their progress, won their semifinal after an uncharacteristically tardy start.

However the three qualifiers from the second semifinal all clocked quicker times.

Feathery said they had been happy with progress and the win at the Munich World Cup in June gave them an extra boost, being the first tangible sign that they were up with the quickest European crews.

"There's a lot of boats with around the same speed so it'll come down to who has the best race on the day," Feathery said.

Single sculler Emma Twigg has a tough job, against formidable opponents in multi-medal winners Mirka Knapkova of the Czech Republic, Ekaterina Karsten-Khodotovitch of Belarus and China's Xiuyun Zhang.

Men's double scullers Matthew Trott and Nathan Cohen qualified fourth fastest and certainly have the ability to be in the hunt for a medal.

Adaptive single sculler Robin Tinga rounds out New Zealand's finalists and he'll have to work hard to make the dais.

Double world lightweight champion Duncan Grant and lightweight double Storm Uru and Peter Taylor have their semifinals tonight and both should progress to tomorrow night's finals.

Four years ago New Zealand won a celebrated four golds in 45 minutes in Gifu, Japan. A repeat might be a stretch, but the chance to reinforce the country's pre-eminent place within the sport is well within reach.