KEY POINTS:
The Herald on Sunday's award winning journalist Paul Lewis is in Beijing ready to answer your questions on anything about the Games.
Every now and then in sport, you come across people who are just so impressive that it is impossible to believe anything other than they will win.
The New Zealand rowing team is like that. They seem to consistently throw up people not only capable of being world-class in their sport but who are also intelligent, articulate performers.
Actually, rowing as a whole is like that. Maybe it's something to do with the enormous discipline and commitment required; the knowledge that hard work can lead to rewards. Or maybe it's because all rowers also know humility because they realise that success in their sport can come down to intangibles - like teamwork and the tiny subtleties in rowing that can overcome even the fittest and most powerful.
So when huge men like Rob Waddell and Mahe Drysdale hove into view, almost dwarfing the likes of coxless four crew member Carl Meyer (and he's no pygmy), lightweight sculler Storm Uru and single sculler Emma Twigg at the rowers' first public showing at the Beijing Olympics today, it is possible for the unenlightened to expect a dialogue of few words; grunts rather than garrulousness.
We journos see a bit of that, you see. Sport's finest might be the fastest and the strongest but sometimes their expression is not, er, world-class or they prefer bland answers to questions to save themselves from distractions; to avoid controversy; and to avoid giving the opposition any edge.
Not a bit of it with these rowers. Waddell spoke beautifully about how he was enjoying sculling more than ever before - because of his relationship with double sculls partner Nathan Cohen. Drysdale grinned at the media pack as he described how all the intangibles had come together and he was flying three days before competition.
They not only spoke well, they were open - a rare thing with sportspeople in these days of media training and media strategies. They both rate excellent medal chances - and it shows.
Meyer had to answer some tough questions about why the world champion coxless four have not lived up to those heights since - prompting British champion rower Sir Steven Redgrave to predict that the Kiwis won't medal at the Beijing Olympics.
The twins, Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell, are in a similar position with their performance falling off in recent times and their non-appearance at the press conference was almost certainly to keep the pressure off them and to let them get on with it.
But Meyer, whose drawl fingers him as a citizen of the deep south and whose weathered features hint at his rowing toughness, fronted up.
There were a lot of nuances and subtleties, to making a boat go fast, he said. It could be technical things or it could be crew harmony or it could be rhythm.
Back in 1984, when the Kiwi coxless four won gold under the gimlet coaching eye of North Shore's Brian Hawthorne, they too struggled to find their rhythm - that innate sense of togetherness which can almost pick the boat out of the water when in force. They found it and kept it together for the Los Angeles Olympics while this four is struggling to re-discover it.
Meyer said the four were shocked at their ordinary form in Europe this year - they had worked hard and thought they were rowing well but were off the pace.
With disarming honesty, he said: "If we knew what was wrong, we'd have fixed it."
It can be almost imperceptible things like timing, rhythm, cadence, an invisible and unspoken string of confidence and cohesion; and it is a balancing act bringing all those and other things together; a careful blend of intangibles that give the lie to the contention that rowing is just about muscle and fitness.
So, when you see the four in their heat on Saturday, or Drysdale or Waddle and Cohen or the twins, watch for the invisible, the indefinable, the intangibles.
And know that win, lose or draw, the rowers will front up.
Paul Lewis
Pictured above: The men's four, made up of (from left) Hamish Bond, Eric Murray, James Dallingerand Carl Meyer. Photo / Sarah Ivey
