Sitting, not on sidelines

This afternoon, the world’s best sculler will bid to reclaim the championship singles title he won four years ago. Tomorrow afternoon, he’ll join seven of his world-class colleagues in the Great Eight as they try to duplicate what they did in March, when they beat all comers at the Head of the River Race on the Thames and struck a blow for two-oar pullers everywhere.

Drysdale could have called it a season after winning his fourth straight title at the August world regatta in Poland, but he’s been on such a lovely run that he hasn’t wanted to stop.

“It’s been my best year so far,’’ he reports. “First year ever going through an international season unbeaten. It was a bit of a dream, really.’’

Drysdale hadn’t planned on rowing this year after finishing third at the Olympics, where gastrointestinal misery hit him on the worst day possible.

“I’m very proud of making the podium, but there’s still a lot of disappointment there,’’ he says. “I still think I was capable of winning. It’s just one of those things that happens. One of the beauties of the sport is that to be a champion you’ve got to perform on a certain day. I knew in Beijing that was the only day that counted and I had to go out and do my best. When you do go out and do your best you’re satisfied, and I knew that was as good as I could have done.’’

So Drysdale figured he’d take a sabbatical but it only lasted until January, when restlessness sent him back to the boathouse. “I was already kind of missing it,’’ he says. “So the thought was I’m going to be sitting around just waiting to get back into it, so why not do it?’’

His fitness came back more quickly than he’d imagined, so when English coach Bill Barry asked him to join his Olympic rivals in a grand experiment, Drysdale found himself turning back the clock five years to his summer with the Kiwi four in Athens. Sculling may be his passion, but the lure of group achievement was irresistible. “It’s awesome,’’ he says. “You’ve got the guys, and there’s a lot of camaraderie.’’

What makes the Great Eight unique, besides their fistfuls of global medals, is that they’re all from different countries - Iztok Cop from Slovenia, Ondrej Synek from the Czech Republic, Alan Campbell from Great Britain, Tim Maeyens from Belgium, Marcel Hacker from Germany, Lassi Karonen from Sweden, and Warren Anderson from the United States.

“When Bill asked would I like to join I said, are you kidding?’’ said Anderson, who’s sitting in for Norway’s Olaf Tufte, the two-time Olympic champion whose wife gave birth this week. “I spent the last couple of years watching these monsters attack each other in World Cups.’’

The question was whether eight solo acts could make a chorus. “The egos you could put in a warehouse,’’ testifies Barry, who coaches London’s famed Tideway Scullers. Who would sit behind whom? “I was thinking, eight people who all thought they’d be stroke,’’ says Drysdale.

So Barry quickly settled things by installing Cop there and assigning seats before the oarsmen did it. “With these alpha males, the first thing is to get a plan,’’ he figured. “Don’t give them a chance to make the plan for you. You’ll get 10 different plans.’’

Barry’s alignment worked perfectly as the Great Eight upset defending champion Leander, which had five Beijing medalists in the boat, to win the granddaddy of all Head races. Then they split up and went back to attacking each other in the single. The eight might be great, but Drysdale has evolved into a sculler (all scullers believe they’re higher on the evolutionary scale than sweepers).

He’d decided to cross over after finishing a disappointing fifth with the four in Athens, five seconds out of the medals. “To go into sculling was my chance to see whether I had the potential to go on,’’ Drysdale says. “Had I not progressed and become a medalist, I probably wouldn’t be in the sport today. But once I realized that I could be the best, that drove me to keep going and keep striving for that Olympic gold, which is the pinnacle of our sport.’’

This year was about showing that what happened in Beijing was a one-day aberration. “That was one of the reasons I wanted to get back into it,’’ Drysdale says. “I wanted to get back to the top as much to prove to myself that I was still able to do that.’’

Drysdale ended up posting a world-best time in Poland, beating Campbell and Synek to win his fourth straight crown. Now he’s back here looking to knock off countryman and defending champion Nathan Cohen and reestablish his primacy on the Charles before jumping into the 5-seat of the Great Eight to take on the German world titlists, the Yanks, the French, the Leander chaps, and the Washington Huskies.

If you’re going to fly 27 hours, you might as well put in a full weekend. From here, Drysdale goes to Philadelphia for the Head of the Schuylkill, then to Europe for four more regattas. The sabbatical can wait until after 2012.

“That’s the reason I’m back,’’ he says. “Because I love it.’’

John Powers can be reached at jpowers@globe.com.