Veteran Ursula Grobler is back on the water and fighting to reclaim her old spot in the lightweight double sculls boat in which she and Kirsty McCann finished fifth at the Rio Olympics.
Her return after more than two years is a boost to the squad and comes as the competition among SA's rowers to get to the 2020 Tokyo Games hots up. The training course at Roodeplaat Dam to the north of Pretoria could resemble Midway or Trafalgar over the next 15 months.
There are 10 men bidding for six spots in two heavyweight boats - a pair and a four - but perhaps the four who miss out can share the disappointment.
Among the lightweight women, however, there are three strong contenders duelling for two seats in the double scull.
What will inevitably end in heartbreak for one of Grobler, McCann or rising star Nicole van Wyk is pleasure for coach Roger Barrow.
STANDARDS WILL GO UP
"It's great," he said. "We needed it. The standard will definitely go up. You know me, I like having more people."
Barrow faces a chess game for the two men's crews at the world championships later this year, which doubles as Olympic qualifiers. The premier pair boat must make the top 11, but the four can't be worse than eighth, so the coach might load the fours boat to qualify for both.
The women's lightweight double sculls crew must be seventh.
McCann and Van Wyk, who started together only last year and won a silver at their first World Cup regatta of the season, ended eighth at the 2018 world championships.
In 2017 McCann rowed by herself, taking gold in the non-Olympic lightweight single sculls class at the world championships.
Since Rio, Grobler has gotten married, run the Comrades and some long-distance trail races and even, during a stint in Cape Town, rowed by herself in unforgiving wind.
She says she always planned to come back - she loves the sport too much.
And there's also unfinished business from Rio, where she and McCann had led at the 1km halfway mark.
"I want to go the Olympics and I want to do better than we did in Rio because the way our final went down, it was a hard way to end your rowing career."
Grobler and McCann were a formidable duo, and in 2015 they became the first female rowers to win a world championship medal for SA.
But that was then. Grobler, who turns 39 on Wednesday, knows she won't be selected on sentiment for her impressive past achievements.
FORMER WORLD-RECORD HOLDER
Grobler was the first SA-born rower to win a world championship medal, competing for the US in the non-Olympic quadruple sculls in 2010.
That same year McCann, now 30, became the first SA woman to medal at the world under-23 championships; Van Wyk, nearly 24, was the second in 2016 but became the first to win a second U23 gong in 2017.
Grobler used to hold the world record on the indoor ergo machine, but said her 6min 54sec mark was broken twice last year. "It stood for eight years - I'm really proud of that."
She messaged the first of the new holders to congratulate her. Now Grobler's focus is getting as strong as she can on the water.
"We're going to use the competition to make the boat faster. You have to let that be the goal - you know you're doing it for the boat."
But dismay awaits one of them when the final Tokyo selection is made. "For any one of us it's going to be gut-wrenching."..