Rowing: Wait for the stars to shine at Karapiro

Fans of last year's Olympic rowing trial between Mahe Drysdale and Rob Waddell could see action of a similar magnitude on the banks of Lake Karapiro by late February.

That's likely to be when selected hopefuls will trial for the first world championships on New Zealand shores in 32 years.

It will be no surprise if Waddell returns to the water after demonstrating over the past two years that he can still make a boat move. However, the selection conundrums now drive much deeper.

Logic suggests that with Eric Murray, 27, and Hamish Bond, 23, as the new men's pair world champions, they will remain as incumbents. But, as Drysdale found out before the Beijing Games trials, no one is safe.

The Olympic bronze medal-winning men's pair of Nathan Twaddle and George Bridgewater is one area of debate.

The 33-year-old Twaddle is keen to move into a sculling crew or a bigger sweep oar boat, saying he and Bridgewater squeezed everything they could out of the pair together.

Should he choose to, you can imagine the 26-year-old Bridgewater still has plenty to add to his CV, which now also boasts a win in The Boat Race with Oxford, as well as an MBA.

However, Bridgewater, is reluctant to commit to rowing next year with employment opportunities on the horizon.

"There are a lot of transitions in my life now," he says from Oxford.

"I'm growing up a bit. Building to Beijing, I was single-mindedly focused on rowing and that's the way it has to be.

"Ultimately I'd like to win an Olympic gold medal, that's the biggest aspiration in my career to date, but I'd have to look objectively at that, if or when I come back."

But one precedent is not lost on him.

"We saw Rob Waddell do it last year with six to seven months' training and he was putting in some of the world's best performances on the erg machine. But it's something I'll only know in time."

Bridgewater's prepared to open a gentlemanly door to the incumbent world champions.

"I don't have my future pegged to their success. I knew they were always going to be a good pair because we'd raced them in New Zealand before and they were fast."

Buoyed by the lustre of gold around his neck, Murray welcomes an on-the-water stoush next year.

"At the moment, the pair's where we'll look to stay. If they [Bridgewater and Twaddle] do come back for another crack - good on them. It makes the competition stronger."

Twaddle could move into the men's coxless four. That's currently an under-23 crew, promoted to elite level late this year before narrowly missing the final at the world championships.

Alternatively, he could trial in the men's double sculls boat occupied by Nathan Cohen and Matthew Trott, who improved to fourth in their second year together. Another option is the quadruple sculls rig taken away for testing in Canada last month with an eye to making it competitive for next year's home regatta.

That boat included 23-year-old James Dallinger, a member of the 2007 world champion men's coxless four crew with Bond, Murray and Carl Meyer.

Dallinger took a year off after the crew's slump at the Olympics. He's now about to qualify as an electrician but is raring to return to elite rowing.

"It was bloody exciting watching those guys win those medals in Poland," he admits. "It made me a bit jealous but I chose to have the time off and I'm better for it. I don't care what boat I'm in as long as I line up in the finals at Karapiro next year. Hopefully it'll be an Olympic-class boat, though."

One who won't be lining up is 27-year-old Meyer, who says if anything he'll be watching from the embankment. Meyer says he hasn't retired but will be going on an OE with long-time partner Caroline Evers-Swindell.

"I got myself registered as an engineer this year but we're probably going to bugger off in the New Year for about six months."

Meyer's turned his attention to multisport where he completed the Coast to Coast and also came second a fortnight ago in a two-day, 11-hour mixture of kayaking, cycling and off-road running in the Coromandel.

Another selection bottleneck comes with the return of Juliette Haigh from an overseas sabbatical.

Haigh has won gold and silver in the women's pair at world champ level but questions will be raised whether it is worth breaking up the rising bronze-medal combination of Rebecca Scown and Emma Feathery.

What might ease the impasse is that Haigh has focused on sculling at club level overseas, so could bolster the less successful women's double or quad, given Emma Twigg's seemingly in control of the women's single sculls after a fourth in Poland.