Rowing: Coxless four fly under radar and find a formula

By DAVID LEGGAT in Athens

A little rejigging here, a tweak or two there, and hey presto, New Zealand's coxless four had found their Olympic formula.

And now, having finished an impressive second in their heat to easily make tomorrow's semifinals, the four of stroke Eric Murray, Carl Meyer, Mahe Drysdale and bow Donald Leach can visualise themselves in Saturday's final on the windy Schinias course on the outskirts of Athens.

Of all the Kiwi crews, they have gone about their leadup campaign with the least fuss and attention.

World champion double scullers Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell, single sculler Sonia Waddell and the coxless pair combinations of Nathan Twaddle and George Bridgewater, and Nicky Coles and Juliette Haigh have had more mileage than the four for a variety of reasons.

And that's fine for the quartet, who raised eyebrows with their smart 6m 22.91s in finishing second by just 0.94s to Australia in the heats.

Only two other crews were faster than New Zealand - defending Olympic champions Britain and Italy, with the British at 6m 20.85s the fastest into the semifinals.

So far so good. But to backtrack, the moment it all started to take shape for the four came at the Amsterdam regatta last month.

Leach, a 23-year-old Cantabrian, reckons it had a touch of the Eureka! about it.

"We were tinkering around with combinations until Amsterdam," he told the Herald.

"That's when we started to click as a crew. We found what worked best and it's a bow side tandem."

That is a tactic which has the two middle oarsmen rowing on the same, left side. The stroke and bow, that is the back and front men, pull on the stroke, or right side.

It is not particularly unusual - New Zealand's gold medal-winning coxless four at the Los Angeles Games in 1984 was tandem-rigged.

It's just that the Athens four took a while to find out it was their best option.

And now?

"We're excited and we've got quite good boat speed," said Leach.

"And we've become a tight unit."

He was pleased the heat had given them a valuable benchmark to work with. No amount of training could substitute for the tensions of a competitive race.

Both Australia and New Zealand beat the world champion Germans home in the heat - in New Zealand's case by a stunning 10s.

"We were happy with that, but a bit pissed off we let the Aussies get us in the last few metres.

"But we've definitely got something to work with."

And as for sneaking in under the publicity radar, that suited the four just fine - not that they want to remain in the background for much longer.

"We're happy no one rates us and we want to turn heads at this regatta.

"We plan to go out and attack the semifinal race, not accept defeat."

Twaddle and Bridgewater went one better by winning their coxless pair heat with a strong performance, clocking the quickest of the three winning times, 6m 54.75s.

But they remain quietly conservative in their outlook.

Auckland oarsman Twaddle, the more experienced of the two and highly regarded in the national squad as a composed, quality performer, said it was all about "keeping our eye on the ball, because this is the best of the best".

He pointed out that the three medallists at last year's world championships in Milan - Australia, Croatia and South Africa - are all in the hunt, along with solid pairings from Canada, Italy - both world finalists last year - and Serbia & Montenegro. Nothing is cut and dried in this event.

Twaddle, who won the B final in Milan with Rob Hellstrom to secure the Olympic spot, shares his younger crewmate's cautious outlook as they press on in their bid for a spot in Saturday's final.

"One of George's strengths is he's never happy with what he's done, and I'm a bit that way.

"We're not like [American swimmer] Michael Phelps saying he's going for eight gold medals," Twaddle said, shaking his head.

And in any case, they're only interested in one.