KEY POINTS:
For someone whose initial motivation for stepping into a rowing boat was a trip to the university Easter tournament, Mahe Drysdale's done all right. If the next two years unfold as he plans, by late 2008 he will be a three-time world champion and Olympic gold medallist.
And
for his magnificent win at the worlds in Eton in August, retaining one of the glamour titles in rowing, Drysdale is the Herald's Sports Person of the Year.
When the New Zealand squad arrived in England, they were defending four gold medals won in Gifu, Japan, last year. From the outset it was an improbable mission to retain them. Competition was keener than a year earlier, as the leading nations began preparing for Beijing.
Still, a gold, silver and three bronze were not to be sniffed at in a regatta where conditions were not designed to aid the rowers.
New Zealand holds a prominent place in world rowing. Go back 86 years to Darcy Hadfield winning the bronze at the Antwerp Olympics in the single-seater. Then Bob Stiles and Fred Thompson got silver in the coxless pair at Los Angeles in 1932.
Fast forward to the coxless four and eights heroics of the late 1960s and early 1970s when legends were created.
Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell have been the darlings of world rowing this decade, and Rob Waddell dominated the single scull up to and including the 2000 Olympics.
Drysdale, at 28 and in his prime, is now The Man in the big seat.
His preparation for Eton was not ideal. There was a 48-hour stomach bug which knocked him about, and he worried that he had peaked too early.
He had won a World Cup regatta in Poland, then got pipped at the higher class Lucerne regatta, as he had been a year ago, by Olympic champion Olaf Tufte.
Drysdale is a firm believer that you learn most from your defeats. Wins are what it's about, but the moments which can make you stronger come from adversity.
His status had changed from Gifu. There, he was in his first year on his own, having contested the coxless four at the Athens Olympics, and little notice was taken of his progress.
"This year I wasn't given any leeway. Everyone was watching me. They wouldn't let me go like last year," Drysdale said.
When he awoke on finals morning, he felt good.
"At Gifu, I went into the final thinking, 'If I win a medal here I'll be pretty happy'.
"This time I knew from the results if I had a good race I could win. So I was confident, but you can't ever write off your competitors."
Rowing is like that. No rubbish trash talking like basketball; none of cricket's sledging. There's a respect among the best. Get above yourself and the sport has a way of bringing you down with a thump.
The bare statistics of the final are this: Drysdale won in a world record 6m 35.40s, .09s ahead of the eccentric Marcel Hacker, with the Czech Republic's Ondrej Synek third 2.11s behind the Kiwi and Tufte fourth, a further couple of seconds back.
But the contest over the 2000m at Dorney Lake was perhaps the most compelling in any sport this year.
Hacker, as is his wont, surged out to a lead in the first 500m. Drysdale expected this, but when he chanced a quick glance at halfway and saw the shaven-headed German out by a couple of lengths of open water "I started going 'wooo'. The way he went out was incredible".
It was a decisive moment.
"I could have given it away and said, 'He's got too much of a lead'. But I knew from the semifinal I'd gone through him
and felt as soon as I put him under pressure he'd crack.
"At the final 250m, when I looked round and still had a length to catch him, I was thinking it would really be touch and go. At that point I didn't know where I was going to finish."
Drysdale inched up and got his man a couple of strokes from the line. Blink at the wrong second and you'd have missed it.
This is a man who likes to be in control. Once in front, a rapid glance left and right tells him the state of play. The final was different.
"The only other race in the single I've ever been behind at 1500m was in Munich last year, in my first race.
"In some respects, I got lucky at the end because Hacker blew up. I'd like to think if I was in the same position he was, he'd never have caught me."
A spot of globetrotting followed. A long distance race in Switzerland, the popular Head of the Charles race in Boston, the 11km Silverskiff race in Turin - where his reward for breaking the course record by 27s included a bag of gold coins - and a couple of races in England wrapped up a year to savour.
Now he's home, hero of Auckland's West End club, and mixing relaxation with preparation for next year's campaign. There's little time to improve on his 15 golf handicap for this 2.01m old boy of Tauranga Boys High and Auckland Senior College.
His graduate diploma in commerce and IT from Auckland University can gather dust for now.
This is a driven athlete, and he's got a big asset in his ear in premier coach Dick Tonks, who teamed with Drysdale last year.
Tonks, longtime coach of the Evers-Swindells and the man behind Waddell's Olympic gold, is held in the highest esteem. What's his secret?
"His reading of the athletes and, for me personally, his ability to push me," Drysdale said.
"Some of the things I've improved on over the years, when I look back, I never thought possible.
"And that's the key, what he can get out of athletes - and most of the time that's more than what the athletes think they can give."
There will be no let-up this year, no saving himself for 2008.
Drysdale's philosophy is instructive, both of himself and what it takes to be a champion.
"I'll be busting a gut and trying to stay on top. Ideally, I want to go into the Olympics as a three-time world champion and be the one to beat.
"I've got no problem with being favourite; it makes no difference to the way I approach things. Mental edge is important, so hopefully it makes a difference to my competitors."
He knows who they'll be. This is an event where it is rare to find a bolter. Those who were there this year will be in Beijing, in it for the long haul.
Drysdale allows himself the odd spot of visualisation, contemplating how things might pan out in Beijing. But essentially he is pragmatic. He thinks of Beijing as the end point and plans his preparation back from there.
"I haven't thought too much about Beijing. I break it down to a daily thing, even a session by session on how I'm going to get there.
"That's the dream at the end of the tunnel, but I'm more based on what I'm going to do today and what's important to do in the next month.
"It's going to get harder. You can never get complacent. You've always got to be improving."
Stiff competition
So who gets the unlucky silver stars? Who are the close but no Cohibas candidates?
Three Commonwealth Games champions for starters - the sevens rugby team, the Silver Ferns (who ended the year with a 50-50 record against Australia, so not their finest 12 months), and trap shooter Graeme Ede. All were close.
Hamish Carter, second at the world triathlon champs; Sam Warriner, second in the women's triathlon in Melbourne, a World Cup winner in England and runner-up in Japan.
Cameron Cole, who won the junior men's downhill title at the world mountain bike champs in Rotorua; the Crusaders, who make the business of winning Super rugby titles look ho-hum; and badminton pair Sara Runesten Petersen and Dan Shirley who, in their last hurrah together, won the Commonwealth Games silver.