He describes an average day at the buffet: "I have breakfast, then a second breakfast after our first row of the day, then a small snack before lunch. There's a pre-training meal in the afternoon then a recovery meal... then dinner and, being smaller than a few others, I have supper as well. I struggle to hold the weight whatever I eat with all the training.
"Rowing New Zealand's got this awesome new sponsor, Alliance Meat Group, who supply beasts for us. We just came away from having eye fillet for lunch. I feel bad just throwing it in a sandwich, but hey, it brightens the day."
There's no doubting the 20-year-old's commitment. He and Hayden Cohen won gold in Lithuania at the under-23 world championships racing the double.
"We were a bit like Nathan and Joseph," Flannery says. "You can still race as fast but you have to do it a different way through stroke rate. You can't rely on power. The same applies to our quad."
The new quad has already earned silver behind Britain at the year's first World Cup in Sydney, but that was acknowledged as a weaker field.
Fauvel is the other non-Cohen brother in the crew. The 26-year-old formed part of the men's eight which failed to qualify for the Olympics last year in Belgrade.
In parallels to Mahe Drysdale's university tourney beginnings, Fauvel only started rowing five years ago in his last year of a surveying degree at Otago. He has spent much of his career as a single sculler.
"Yep, that's always been me. Two oars," says Fauvel, who at around 92kg is acknowledged as the team "monster" by Flannery.
Fauvel attributes much of the crew's development to the centralised programme at Lake Karapiro.
"It's such a hub of activity in and around Cambridge, especially with cycling and triathlon moving in close by. It feels like a real athletic environment."
The quad races its heat tonight (New Zealand time) on the Eton Dorney course, site of last year's Olympics. New Zealand has nine crews competing at the regatta, including unbeaten men's pair Eric Murray and Hamish Bond.
