Rowing: Hotshots enjoy a bit of banter

The one-liners came thick and fast as the men's single scullers gathered for a pre-world championship final press conference yesterday.

It was a gathering of the event's hotshots - Czech Republic's Ondrej Synek, the winner of all three World Cups this year and someone who possesses only broken English was the only absentee - and the immediate impression was of a kind of rough camaraderie which comes from duelling with each other year after year.

New Zealand's defending champion Mahe Drysdale set the tone from the start, pointing out "we're friends off the water, but enemies on it. In some ways it's easier to beat your friend than a stranger because then you can brag about it".

Step forward double Olympic champion Olaf Tufte and the Norwegian had a rejoinder to his Kiwi mate. "Mr Mahe thinks he's going to win, so let him think," he quipped. "It's going to be the one best prepared for choppy water and a hard chase."

Briton Alan Campbell, expected to set a strong pace and in good form, reckons the real winners out of what is among the most anticipated races in the regatta will be the spectators.

"It's going to be a hell of a race and it's the greatest field I've ever seen."

The men were asked where they hoped to be at the 1000m, or halfway, stage. "It doesn't matter who leads at the 1000m; it matters who is first at 2000m," growled pony-tailed Slovenian Luca Spik.

Campbell took the chance for an amiable jibe at Drysdale's mishap before his semifinal on Thursday over the missing stickers on the sides of his boat. It could have cost him a disqualification.

He raised his hand inside the first 100m - which is allowable - to request a restart, which he won. "The rest of us have chipped in together to get him some more stickers," Campbell said to general laughter, passing a sticker across the table to Drysdale. "They're made of lead."

Tufte added his bit: "[Now I know] if I'm having a bad start I'll put my hand in the air."

It was all in good fun, and followed a few minutes after the same format for four of the women's singles finalists. New Zealand's Emma Twigg gave it a miss but all the focus was on Belarusian Ekaterina Karsten, the dominant figure for many years, dating back to the first of her two Olympic golds in Atlanta in 1996.

The 38-year-old from Minsk isn't giving much away about her future plans.

"First the Olympic Games in London [in 2012], then we will see," she said through an interpreter.

But she knows there is good talent coming through.

"Now you can see a lot of good new rowers, all of them are young, not like me."

Even so, put your money on the old, not the new, for winning the gold.