KEY POINTS:
The crime will come after the trial if Rob Waddell pips Mahe Drysdale in the water today and then nabs the Olympic berth that both men prize.
Unless Waddell can show he has truly mastered Drysdale in the third and final leg of this electric battle at Lake
Karapiro, then the current and triple world champion fully deserves to be given the single sculling spot that was his by right until Waddell jumped out of his America's Cup ship and back into a row boat.
Rowing has never been the talk of the town as it has become, even though reluctant, old-world rowing bosses tried to hide this light under the Karapiro bushes.
For my money, Drysdale was the incumbent selection, the best in the world, the man who had qualified the New Zealand boat, the people's new champion, a man who fully deserved to be an Olympic single sculls certainty until the remarkable Waddell quietly slipped into his comeback.
As great as Waddell has been, this should never have been regarded as a trial between two equally weighted combatants.
Waddell ambushed Drysdale to a degree, forcing a man who had every right to regard himself as an Olympic certainty to alter his preparation course.
If Drysdale had been given plenty of warning that his well-earned Olympic spot was under threat, then fair cop. But Waddell timed his surprise comeback for a vigorous sprint towards selection, while Drysdale had been physically and mentally preparing for a longer build up towards China.
Drysdale initially reacted with easy-to-understand pique, and then set about peaking. He's confronted the challenge, and showed his true grit on Sunday by convincingly winning the first trial. Game over, in my books, although he has been forced into regathering his emotions for two more races.
Waddell had to do far more than show that he was the equal of the younger man to deserve the Olympics berth, and he hasn't.
It would be an appalling injustice if Waddell were to edge Drysdale out by a tiny margin today and on the basis of that be given the Olympic single sculling berth. As has long been the unwritten code in the boxing ring, the challenger needs to win conclusively, to deliver a knockout blow either to the chin or on the scorecards.
Drysdale's win on Sunday made it imperative that Waddell deliver a punch of George Foreman power to secure the Olympic singles berth, and he failed to do that the following day. Waddell has made an amazing comeback, a testament to his extraordinary talent, energy and willpower. But it hasn't been a knockout blow which shows him to be a clearly superior Olympic gold prospect yet.
As for the claim that Waddell has more improvement in him than Drysdale - who can really know? Years of rowing inactivity may have put a cap on Waddell's potential, whereas Drysdale has better conditioning.
If anything, Drysdale's storming win in the first trial race on Sunday was the nearest thing to a killer blow this contest has seen. With the pressure on and his long-held dreams screaming "nightmare" back at him, Drysdale delivered brilliantly under duress after Waddell had won the final lead-up race at the national champs.
Natural justice decrees that if Drysdale and Waddell can't be clearly separated on the water, then rowing should stick by the world champion.
Unless something dramatic happens on the water today, the split judgment decision must go Drysdale's way.
* A Bledisloe Cup decider in Hong Kong? What next? Seriously - what next? The New Zealand Rugby Union, while continuing to put its hands all over every aspect of the game in this country, has launched itself into the tacky promotions business by staging the final game of a major test contest in the place that has long been the anything-goes free-market capital of the world. Oh the irony, for those of us who can only dream about a day when the national rugby union allows the "franchises" to truly run their own affairs and thus rescue the game from the drudgery, uniformity and ineptitude of state control.
It will be an inglorious November night, live from Hong Kong, after which Richie McCaw might celebrate the retention of the Bledisloe Cup by parading it around the imposing International Finance Centre or take it on a cruise across the Sham Chun River. Kids have long been an afterthought for big-time rugby in this country, and once again they'll have to do with a replay the next morning. But how many of us will really care any more, as a symbol of the game's value to this country is paraded as a trinket for the fleeting enjoyment of a foreign audience?
Finally, rugby's desperate grandiosity has produced fruit after years of talk about holding major games offshore. It will put extra money in the bank but the Bledisloe Cup has been plunged into credibility debt, cast as a cheap export that is no longer an imperative for home stadiums.
Eden Park or even a grand venue in the Australian rugby outpost of Melbourne - these are the places for such epics, where home fans can thrill to the battle and influence the outcome. Hong Kong will be a sterile place where the clapping of hands will represent the clacking of credit cards.
A weak New Zealand Rugby Union and a John O'Neill-led Australian mob make for dangerous bedfellows. What next? All Black tests in Disneyland around the world? Mickey Mouse all right, although under the current transtasman rugby regimes the prospect doesn't sound so goofy.
* The world's top cricketers, past and present, have been handed winning lottery tickets thanks to India's obsession with the game. Men like Brendon McCullum will become rich beyond their wildest dreams by playing a form of the game that is only a few grains removed from beach cricket when it comes to assessing a player's true worth. Who will really give a stuff whether the Challengers beat the Royals or not, or whether McCullum belts 10s or 100s in this Twenty/20 madhouse?
Good luck to McCullum and co but now is the time for many of these same men to show that they are still genuine test cricketers who care about real cricket. We can all celebrate their good and substantial fortune, the handsome rewarding of what, especially in McCullum's case, are extraordinary skills. But if the players' burgeoning bank accounts preoccupy their minds to the point that they don't apply themselves to what should be a riveting test series between New Zealand and England, then they can expect brickbats.
* World football boss Sepp Blatter is He Who Must Be Obeyed, and hopefully so after taking a major stand against the English football Premier League's plans for each team to play an extra game abroad. The Premier League is a brilliant competition, despite obvious flaws including a fading British playing contingent and the dominance of just a few clubs. Its integrity is rooted in the home and away system - the competition's credibility will go out the window if the loonies promoting the extra game win out.
