115 rowers are set to go to the start line of next week's Olympic-season GB Rowing Team trials with just 48 Rio places on offer later this summer and earlier seats to be won at the European Championships.
The announcement of the crews for the European Championships will take place on April 6.
Sir David Tanner, British Rowing's Performance Director said: "This is the event when we test the rowers under pressure in pairs and singles to see who has got what it takes to win. The tension is never greater than in Olympic year."
The field for next week's (Tuesday 22 and Wednesday 23) men's pair event will be headed by names like Alex Gregory, Mohamed Sbihi, George Nash, Will Satch, Pete Reed, Andrew T Hodge and Constantine Louloudis who are all Olympic medallists, three of them Olympic Champions.
Gregory and Sbihi are tipped to take a hat-trick of titles since 2014 and, for Sbihi, victory would mean a fourth consecutive victory at this event.
World men's eight Champions Paul Bennett and Matt Gotrel will also have eyes on the prize of a top seat for 2016.
Helen Glover and Heather Stanning are stand-out favourites to win the women's pair event. The duo hold the Olympic, World and European titles although Jess Eddie and Polly Swann - the latter a Worlld Champion with Glover in 2013 - could run them close as they didd in 2014.
Singular "single" and women's sweep battles in store
Perhaps more intriguing could be the battle for top honours in the open men's single scull.
Angus Groom won the December assessment. The young Scot is making his mark after joining the senior squad from the ranks of the U23 World medallists.
With Charles Cousins absent through injury, 2012 Olympic bronze medallist Alan Campbell should feel he has a chance to extend his remarkable trials record to nine overall wins. He won eight titles consecutively from 2005-2012 before Cousins took over the mantle.
2013 and 2014 World quadruple scull medallists Pete Lambert, Sam Townsend, Graeme Thomas as well as Groom's erstwhile World U23 medal team-mate Jack Beaumont, who is back on track after last summer's serious injury, and 2015 double-scullers Jonny Walton and John Collins are also in the mix.
At these trials only 2012 Olympic gold medallist Andrew T Hodge, racing next week in the men's pair with reigning World pairs silver medallist Matt Langridge, can equal the 10 titles won to date by Katherine Grainger who sits out next week as she is recovering from a minor niggle, leaving Vicky Thornley the favourite to win the open women's single.
Frances Houghton, a 2008 Olympic silver medalliist and previous, multiple winner of these trials in the single, has swapped into a competitive "sweep" group seeking seats in the Rio-qualified women's eight.
This includes, amongst other contenders, Olympians Eddie and Swann, Katie Greves, Louisa Reeve and Melanie Wilson as well as Donna Etiebet, Ro Bradbury, Olivia Carnegie-Brown and Zoe Lee.
Eddie summed up the mood in the squad when she said recently: "The focus right now is purely on selection, that is the big thing weighing on people's minds. It's pretty intense but it's in our own hands. If we're good enough we'll be in the boat, if we're not we'll, miss out."
Seriously heavy competition for the lightweight titles
Last season's finals session was marked by a sizzling finale to the lightweight women's single scull when Olympic Champion Kat Copeland was eased out in a three-boat photo-finish by Imogen Walsh and, then rookie, Charlotte Taylor.
Taylor and Copeland went on to race in the lightweight double for GB in the ensuing season and won World silver in Aiguebelette, France, and Walsh won World silver in the single.
Outside of this triumvirate a new wave of talented lightweights continues to emerge including previous World U23 medallists Brianna Stubbs and Ellie Piggott.
Next week's trials will feature both a single and a pairs event for the lightweight men as selection is honed down to the two Olympic boats â€" the light four and double.
Richard Chambers and Will Fletcher won World silver in the double last September. Fletcher remains a strong contender for next week's light single title alongside twice previous winner Jamie Kirkwood and Zak Lee Green but Chambers has a hand injury which will keep him on the sidelines.
In the pairs event Joel Cassells, from the same town - Coleraine - as 2012 Olympic medallists Alan Campbell, Peter and Richard Chambers will seek to impress in his continuing rise from recent student rowing days.
This will be a small but tight event with Peter Chambers, Mark Aldred, Chris Bartley, Jonno Cleg and Sam Scrimgeour all with senior medal experience racing against relative newcomers like Jamie Copus and Sam Mottram.
Four coxes are also amongst those attending the invitation only event. They are Phelan Hill, Henry Fieldman, Zoe de Toledo and Matilda Horn.