Rowing: Form book points to gold for 'The Twins'

1.00pm - By DANIEL GILHOOLY

ATHENS - You've made it in sport when the public know you better by a nickname.

Athletics has Queen Bea, rugby has Buck and now rowing has a household name far easier to spout forth than the 11 syllables needed to say Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell.

Any mention of "The Twins" in New Zealand this week is generally followed by sage nods and the pretence of a little rowing knowledge.

Gold is in the bag, most will agree.

The twins are among a minority who do not agree and false modesty doesn't seem to hold true for the down-to-earth sisters born and raised in Hastings who first clambered into rowboats in the Clive River.

They may be twice world champions, unbeaten for three years and clearly quicker than any of their nine rivals here this week, yet there will be no premature talk of Olympic glory.

Instead Georgina and Caroline have adopted the only "take nothing for granted" routine they know ahead of the double sculls final on Saturday evening (NZ time).

"We don't think of expectations from anyone else and what other crews think of us," Georgina offered before the Games regatta began.

"In Olympic year people just go nuts, you have to expect the unexpected."

The treachery of wind and weeds are always lurking at the Schinias course, the twins say, echoing the warnings of coach Dick Tonks.

The Bulgarians are dark horses, Tonks adds, and never, ever discount the Germans -- even if it is their second-choice crew because the top dogs have changed events to avoid the Evers-Swindells.

Fine sentiment but you're inclined to believe Tonks' words from a week earlier before they arrived to the glare of the Games.

He all-but admitted a gold medal was there for the taking. Training in Hazewinkel had gone like clockwork and his charges were peaking perfectly.

And missing out on the 2000 Games hurt a lot, a pain that still thuds until they can make amends.

As long as the stars stay in alignment, Georgina and Caroline will follow the oar strokes of the 1968 coxed four, the 1972 Munich men's eight, the 1984 coxless four and single sculler Rob Waddell in Sydney four years ago, maintaining a proud Olympic rowing heritage.

Georgina's partner Sam Earl, one of the most talented young male rowers in New Zealand, says outsiders would struggle to realise the twins were preparing this week for the biggest race of their lives on Saturday.

The refined mixture of attention to detail and relaxation were the same as before any other regatta.

Earl knew the sisters were in true Games mode when he visited their Belgian training camp two weeks ago.

"Richard Tonks told them to go for a cycle but they said 'no, we want to go for another row'," he says.

"You'd think they'd be sick of it but they do everything they possibly can to achieve what they have to. They're very focused and they're not the sort of people to talk it up. They just get on and do their thing."

Averaging 200km of training every week this year, mostly on Lake Karapiro or using rowing machines at the Lakeside Gym, Georgina is proud to announce they managed one 260km week. It is a figure they had been targeting for some time.

Like many of New Zealand's leading rowers, Earl and the Twins are based in Cambridge.

Earl first saw them in action when they went to his home town Christchurch to study in the late 1990s but didn't get to know Georgina until their shift to Waikato in 2000.

"But even down in Christchurch they were winning a lot of premier events at a young age," Earl says.

"It always looked like they would achieve at a high level."

One of the few things they didn't do together growing up in the Hawke's Bay was take up rowing. Caroline was doing it for three years before convincing her sister to give it a go, aged 15.

The phenomenal combination they have formed is not just something for women to aspire to, Earl says. The men in the New Zealand High Performance Academy admire their achievements more than anyone.

"Having world champions in the programme just lifts people up to try and achieve at that level," Earl says.

"The men always want to do better than the women and vice versa, it's pretty competitive."

That may explain why the men's fours and pairs have both qualified for Games finals as well, along with the women's pair and single sculler Sonia Waddell.

As much as Waddell has achieved, it has to be noted that her run of four national singles crowns ended abruptly in 2001.

Caroline, regarded as the better single sculler of the twins although they rarely race each other publicly, dominated the titles from that year to 2003 but her sister took the honours this year as it was Caroline opted for a break.

Georgina can at least boast an edge in indoor rowing, where she holds the world record.

The twins hope to even up an historical gender misbalance at the Games.

Admittedly women rowers weren't admitted to rowing until 1976 but New Zealand men still lead the medal count by 11 to one -- the sole bronze going to women's pair Lynley Hannan and Nikka Payne in 1988.

One of 10 sets of twins competing at these Games, Georgina and Caroline have the enormous faith and uncanny ability to read each other that opponents can't hope to match.

The best news in a boon regatta for rowing bosses is that the twins aren't going anywhere else in particular after the Games finish.

"We're both loving it at the moment," Caroline says.

"It's taken us so long to get here that we're still keen to carry on."

- NZPA