David Leggat: All eyes on lightweight Brit Kiwi square off

Storm Uru and Peter Taylor. Photo / Getty Images

Of the six finals New Zealand crews will contest at the world championships today, one stands out for its terrific head-to-head quality - at least in hometown eyes.

The lightweight scull combinations of Storm Uru and Peter Taylor, and Britain's Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter, are a mouth-watering prospect, pitting the reigning Olympic champions, from Britain, against the defending world champs.

When Purchase and Hunter won in Beijing in 2008, the New Zealand pair were in the B final, which they won.

The Brits took last year off, and Uru and Taylor took top billing, winning the world crown in Poznan, Poland, with a replacement British pair, Rob Williams and Paul Mattick, finishing sixth.

Now battle has resumed in earnest this season in a class where crews must average 70kg each with neither over 72.5kg.

Purchase, 24, and Hunter, 32, won the Munich World Cup regatta by 1s from the Kiwis; Uru and Taylor cleaned up in the Lucerne event in July, with their rivals fifth, almost 5s adrift.

When the combinations lined up for their semifinal on Wednesday, the British duo led from the start.

Purchase and Hunter reckon they laid down a marker; Uru and Taylor - 25 and 26 respectively - figure they know the British plan and will be ready today.

The Britons appear more outwardly confident; the Kiwis are lower key but no less upbeat about their chances of gold.

Hunter talked of a difficult season and the pain of defeat in Lucerne.

"What happened in Lucerne hurt a lot, so it's good to get back on terms and get back in front," he said.

"The World Cup season for us was very rocky and rolly. We didn't get into the swing of things and Lucerne was the nail in the coffin.

"We needed to knuckle down, get some training done.

"We did a really good block of training and you saw the end product out there [the semifinal] of what we can do. That's exciting."

If there are strong mental elements in play at this stage of a regatta, the New Zealanders are playing it down.

"To be honest, what we're focused on is going as fast as we can. That takes the mental side out of who you're trying to beat," Uru said.

"We know from past experience and within the team with our prognostics [the system used to rate performances] and so on that we're going fast.

"We are strong in our belief that we are going quick, and if we put in a really good performance we are going to be very difficult to beat."

It's never smart to write off the rest of the field and China's Fangbing Zhang and Tiexin Wang won the other semifinal in a slightly quicker time than Britain, who eased slightly at the finish. Italy's Lorenzo Bertini and Elia Luini were faster than New Zealand in taking second, too.

But the feeling persists that when push comes to shove it will be a Brit-Kiwi square off this afternoon.

Shortly before that final, the women's equivalent take to the water - at 57kg average, or 59kg individual maximum weight - and New Zealanders Lucy Strack and Julia Edward are the surprise package, having made it through via a repechage and taking third in their semifinal.

They won the silver medal at the world under-23 championships in Belarus in July but this was thought beyond their scope at this point of their partnership.

"This year has been insane," Strack said. "We got together in February and have just had such an awesome year together."

They had to re-trial to make the elite squad for the worlds "and I guess all the time we had together, all those highs and lows we go through in training, this makes it all worth it".

Strack and Edward actually qualified third fastest for today's final, behind in-form British combination Hester Goodsell and Sophie Hosking and Greeks Christina Giazitzidou and Alexandra Tsiavou.

Solely on times, the New Zealanders must rate a chance for a medal.

That would undoubtedly cap a remarkable year.