History beckons in hot and sultry South Korea for Kim Crow when the sculling star leads Australia's charge at the world rowing championships, starting this weekend.
Crow is favoured to become the first Australian to win the women's single sculls world title, just 14 months after making a scintillating debut in the blue-riband boat class.
The 28-year-old was Rowing Australia's pin-up girl at the London Olympics, winning bronze in the single and silver in the double with Brooke Pratley - the first woman to medal in both in 20 years - and has only improved since.
She's since set her sights on gold in the single at the 2016 Rio Games and shown her intent by dominating the event this year - winning both World Cup regattas in which she entered.
Crow's classy performance at World Cup 3 in Lucerne, Switzerland last month, beating Czech Olympic champion Mirka Knapkova in a surging victory, stamped her as the woman to beat.
Until then, her singles successes had come from dominant start-to-finish efforts but she showed her maturity in chasing down Austrian Magdalena Lobnig and Kiwi Emma Twigg and then holding off Knapkova and American Ellie Logan.
"That's a sign of growth," Australian high-performance manager Chris O'Brien told AAP.
"It was good to see she could do that when someone was rattling her cage early."
For Crow, it not only provided extra evidence of greater experience and smarts in the small boat but a real enjoyment factor as well.
As a former runner, she loved the thrill of a pack race.
"It was actually really fun," Crow told AAP. "It was quite different to be in a pack.
"It was like being back in my cross-country days when you would be running among a whole lot of people and have to make a move; make that decision `yeah it's hurting but I'm going to go now'.
"It was a different race for me but one that I need to realise that as a single sculler I can't just have one race plan.
"The confidence I take from Lucerne is that I know how to race and I know how to react when the pressure comes on."
Knapkova, Twigg and Logan will again be Crow's major rivals in Chungju, where temperatures are expected to sit in the mid-30s Celsius, made more uncomfortable by 90 per cent humidity.
The flagship men's four - containing half the crew, Josh Dunkley-Smith and Will Lockwood, which took silver in London - is Australia's other genuine gold medal boat after also being crowned the best of the World Cup series.
With a prime focus to build towards Rio and many of his best rowers taking a year off, O'Brien is aiming for three medals over the next nine days but wants to see six crews very much in the hunt.
