Rowing: Twins sad biggest rival not at Games

11.00am - By DANIEL GILHOOLY

ATHENS - Rather then revelling in the absence of their greatest foe, the Evers-Swindell sisters are feeling cheated that Katrin Boron won't be alongside them when they row for Olympic gold here.

A serious reversal of form aside, German great Boron was the only conceivable threat to the Waikato twins turning two world championship titles into double sculls Olympic glory on Friday next week.

German management opted to move her to their quadruple sculling crew, believing she and a crewmate had little chance of surpassing the New Zealand pair.

Germans Peggy Waleska and Britta Oppelt will still be in the medal hunt but the absence of eight-time world champion and three-time Olympic gold medallist Boron brings a significant change in shape to the field.

It sparked mixed emotions for both Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell, who have visualised rowing against Boron at these games since watching her win the Olympic title at Sydney four years ago.

"She's been our imaginary training partner since then, every stroke they (Germany) are the ones you're trying to beat," Georgina said today.

"To start with you don't want them to be there but then it happened and I was probably a little bit upset. You want to race the best and she is one of the best female racers in the world at the moment."

It illustrates the dominance of the twins on the international scene that they have still beaten crews featuring Boron in five of their last five meetings, including a 1.8 second margin at the world championships in Milan a year ago.

The weakening of the field and the twins' excellent form in winning their two World Cup regattas in Europe has only served to confirm their favouritism.

However, they tried repeatedly to play down their gold medal chances when they faced journalists for the first and only time today ahead of Saturday's opening heats, saying nothing could ever be taken for granted.

"We don't think of expectations from anyone else and what other crews think of us," Georgina said.

"In Olympic year people just go nuts, you have to expect the unexpected. But you don't let anything phase you. It's a bit like the wind, it's out of our control."

However, Georgina possibly let slip their true attitude when asked if a world record could be achieved on the Schinias course. Steady tailwinds have accompanied their morning training sessions all week.

"We're capable of breaking world records there for sure," she said.

"We've definitely peaked for this regatta, and we didn't peak for the last two (World Cup) regattas. You hope to get more boat speed out of peaking, I guess we'll find out on Saturday."

All five New Zealand crews trained this morning in the strongest winds recorded at the course for two months. Yet the 8mm per second northerly was not enough to force any of them to deploy their bow pod attachments.

The pods are likely to remain in the shed, with speeds of half that strength forecast for the opening heats on Saturday.

Although they have trained with the attachment and it has received the legal all-clear from world governing body FISA, the twins remained wary that other nations still had the option of protesting against it.

The Evers-Swindells said they had settled quickly into their satellite village near the Schinias course, having already visited here on holiday after their Milan triumph.

They were still clocking up an average of 40km training every day last week but had eased it back to 20km after arriving in Athens on Monday and would complete a miserly 8km on Friday, the least productive day of training Georgina could remember.

- NZPA