Rowing: Four 'right on button'

By PETER JESSUP

New Zealand's coxless four believe they are right on the mark for what they predict will be a gut-busting finish down the last few metres of the Penrith rowing course to determine the gold medal winners at the Sydney Olympics next month.

The four will be one of the most hotly contested races at Penrith.

The six crews expected to make the final are the world champions, Great Britain, including the remarkable Steven Redgrave, who is gunning to become the first man to win gold at five Olympics after starting at Los Angeles in 1984; Australia, who were world silver medallists last year and are the defending champions from Atlanta; Italy, who beat the Kiwi team into second place at the Lucerne World Cup regatta last month and are world bronze medal winners; France, who came sixth in the world championships and were fifth at Lucerne; Norway, sixth and within seven seconds of winners Italy's time at Lucerne - and New Zealand.

While single scullers Rob and Sonia Waddell have gone to the Gold Coast for final preparation, the four will remain at their base at Karapiro until September 4.

They know exactly what they need to work on after testing themselves against the best in Europe and are comfortable doing that in familiar surroundings.

"Our start was a bit slow but we hadn't worried a lot about that [before leaving]," said crewman Toni Dunlop, aged 30, heading to his third Olympics. "We'd concentrated our energy on what we were doing in the middle of the race and towards the end.

"There's a very fine line between going fast and not, and just being a little bit off can make a big difference. We're happy with that part of our race now. So now we've evaluated what we need to do about the start."

He has rowed for years with and against fellow oarsmen Dave Schaper, aged 27, with whom he was fifth in the coxless pair at Atlanta in 1996, and Scott Brownlee, aged 31, also going to his third Olympics.

The relative newcomer is Rob Hellstrom, aged 22, from Horowhenua. But they have a big advantage in having been together for the best part of two years, with the majority of that spent hauling up and down Lake Karapiro as they develop technique and lay down a good endurance base.

That work was tested and found to be sound in Europe.

"It was great that the training by numbers worked out," Dunlop said. "All we had to go by was the recorded speed of the boat and it was good to get to Europe and find the numbers we were working on were right on the button."

Now is time for fine-tuning which will add the split-seconds thay need over the 2000m in September.

Every now and again someone will have to sit out with a bad back or other niggle but the crew are relatively injury-free and feel they are peaking at the right time.

In Sydney, organisers have eliminated the rowing course weed problem by completely draining the man-made Penrith lake and hauling out what they could, then fastening a shadecloth-like mat to prevent regrowth. Concern still remains about the wind whipping sideways across the course.

If the wind strength on race days causes undue interference to lanes on the far side, the organisers plan to decide races by running the rowers up one lane at 30-second intervals, best times to win. None of the rowers want that.

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