Carl Meyer, Sergeant Major to his crew mates and one of the most experienced guys in New Zealand's rowing team, is tasked with making the calls and the moves during races. In this unique insight, Carl recalls the race and some of his thoughts and emotions to give you a unique insight into a World Championship winning row.

"As we sat on the start, we were as nervous as hell. I remember feeling quite relaxed, but still very, very nervous. We checked everything, and checked it again

I gave Dally a big pat on the back and reassured him that we knew what were doing and tried to give him the confidence to take it to them. We came forward, looked for the lights and reacted together. The first stroke came through. Chris must have sprayed something - a lubricant or something like that - on the height washers on the riggers to make sure they moved freely, but he must have got a little on the gates because both Eric and I drew the first stroke and our oars shot back towards us. That gave us a very, very brief moment of panic. But it was gone as quickly as it came.

We rowed the half stroke, a three quarter and then a full stroke and got into our start. It was clean. I wouldn't say it was the best we had ever done, but it was a good start. We were pretty aggressive and after 15 strokes, I called for us to flatten it out and get it longer and flatter rather than up and down and all power. We cleaned it up a little bit through 30 strokes gone and at that stage had a bit of a look around. Britain and France had about a canvas on us, but other than that it was pretty close across the field.

That done, we called our punch down to the base after 250 metres. On the punch down I reckon we lost a bit more speed than we would have liked and both France and Britain moved out to what looked to me to be about a half or three quarter length advantage. No real problem though and we then focussed on our first big move, which we had planned for about 400 metres gone. This was a 15 stroke commit and it was a big point in the race because this was where we expected the Poms to have had a lead that from then on, we would be taking from. It was an alright move, pretty good, but not the greatest and all it really did was help us hold where we were. At this point I had a good look at the field but couldn't really tell where we were in the field, it was that close. Normally, this is the point where I would tell the guys but it was so confused, and there were so many boats moving close together, that I decided it wasn't worth saying anything. A little further up the track and we went into that second 500 metres. At this point the plan was to look for a good long rhythm and that was the call I made. We got into that but I was aware our stroke rate was floating up and down a bit - it moved from 39 to 37 rather than being nice and solid. I called a sharpen to get the catches going and the rate came back up but it was changing a bit with the moves, which is something you wouldn't necessarily want. It just wasn't that steady but we were going well and all the time, I was aware of how close it all was.

I looked at the field around us again at 750 metres, and I reckon everyone was looking. I wasn't telling them where we were and I noticed Eric and Dally having a little look. They needed to know, but I figured if I told them, it would have changed by the time I had said it anyway.

At 750 metres gone, we were trying for a longer rhythm. In fact, throughout that entire second 500 metres we were trying to work on our rhythm so that we could dictate the race. It did start to come very well at this point. We weren't aware really that we were in sixth place at 1,000 metres, but we did know we were still in the race. At that point, we made another planned move which took us about 100 or 200 metres closer to home. We had talked about this part of the race before. We had watched Mahé earlier in the day on TV and saw that this was where he won his race. So I shouted 'Do a Mahé, do what he did. Let's take it right here.' The thing was, we were so far back - about a second and a half - that although we were really flying, the push only got us back into it.

It was about then that I noticed the Poms weren't really where I had expected them to be. They were moving backwards and we had gone through them. The Dutch were up and where I expected them to be, but I was quite calm about that even though they had out-sprinted us in Lucerne. Way up on the inside were the Italians and the other way, the Slovenians. What was certain to me and the guys was that in a field that closely matched, we knew that if those crews had gone out that hard, it was going to cost them at some stage. At 500 metres left I called another 'Go' and a big gear change, and then again at 400 metres to go. There was no question by this stage that I knew we really did have a shot at it. It was the Dutch, the Italians and us.  I thought to myself, very briefly, that the guys in front of me - Bondy, Eric and James - really had a hell of a good sprint on them and I felt good about that. So I just called for everyone to stay long and not panic.

You start hearing the crowd at 300 metres to go. I was thinking the guys might not have heard my calls but I'm sure they did as I was getting pretty vocal. The crowd was real loud. With 250 metres to go it felt like we were level with the Dutch but when I watched it on TV later, they were still a bit ahead.

I looked across at the Italians and in the last 250 metres we went berserk. Everyone shouted something. It was just flying. We just got on with it. I called ten strokes to go and when I made that call I was pretty sure we were going to do it. I looked across at the Italians and saw that we had a little bit and I knew by then we were going faster. I just counted it down to the line. It seemed to take a hell of a long time coming and then we crossed the bubbles and that was that.

I thought to myself: 'Did that really happen? Was that a dream? Is there another race to go?' I just couldn't really believe it. I couldn’t believe that the British crew hadn't won and that we had. The race just went completely differently from what I had expected. I had a picture in my mind that the British would go out hard and we would have to come through them. It was a great moment. The other guys were celebrating, and it was just a great, great feeling. For me, it was strange because for so many years I have not been winning. You get used to aiming for the top and then suddenly it was different. We were at the top. We had won.  I had been putting people on the pedestal for so long. I wasn't how I expected to feel, but it was still awesome.”