KEY POINTS:
BEIJING - The biggest threat comes from the man in lane eight when New Zealand kayaking enigma Ben Fouhy contests his second Olympic final tomorrow.
Fouhy will sit silently in that lane at the K1 1000m start line, a personal battle having already begun - to blot out
the memory of his silver medal race at Athens four years ago.
It was there, it seems, that his career forked into troubled waters.
"The Olympic final in 2004 I think damaged me psychologically," he told NZPA.
"That's the hardest race I've ever done in my life, I don't think I've been able to dig as deep since then. It was really pretty deep."
World champion the previous year in his first genuine international season, Fouhy brashly predicted before the Athens final that a time of three minutes 28 seconds would get him gold.
He clocked 3min 27sec yet was beaten by nearly 2sec by Norwegian Eirik Veraas Larsen.
In Fouhy's words: "That blew my mind".
"It's probably something I haven't been able to deal with for the last four years. It's been on my mind and pressured me a lot because I know how much you have to step up.
"I've tried to step everything up so by doing that I've probably overbaked everything a little bit."
The result has been several years in the doldrums, with Fouhy now clearly having slipped behind Canadian powerhouse Adam van Koeverden, Briton Tim Brabants and Larsen in the world pecking order.
Others have clambered to about his level too, shown by Fouhy's struggles this week to qualify for the nine-man final.
Self-framed odds of $58 to win a medal were lowered to $10 after his improved performance in yesterday's semifinal but the 29-year-old acknowledges his shooting star status of five years ago has fizzled out.
"This whole experience has taught me a lot more respect for what I had achieved. I think I was pretty young and naive and idealistic about how I wanted things to go."
The past four years have seen a myriad of different stroke techniques, training hours and mental exercises used in an attempt to peak.
After five years of using different paddles, Fouhy recently returned to the model that won him his world championship title.
One constant has been an intensity to win.
He compared his preparation for Beijing with a family investing all its money in a savings scheme.
"That's why people can't appreciate why we get quite intense about it," he said.
"It's four years of my life and it hasn't always been a bundle of joy."
Fouhy is sure to give away a start to his bigger, more explosive rivals. The key will be not letting them get too far ahead then unwinding with the finish that marked his early days in the sport.
New Zealand's better chance of a medal tomorrow lies with the K2 1000m crew of Steven Ferguson and Mike Walker, who dominated their semifinal yesterday and had the nerve to slow down and finish in second place - booking their preferred lane one for the final.
They were third in their last World Cup regatta at Poznan, Poland, in June and Ferguson has been adamant all week that they cannot be written off here.
"Getting so close to the world champs (at Poznan) after paddling five times together was a bit of a pickup for us," he said.
"We're paddling really well together, I'm confident about what we can do now we've had more racing.
"We're getting far more efficient and a little bit more explosive and quicker in starts. It's all starting to work really well."
- NZPA
