Winter training is over and the GB Rowing Team travels to Belgrade this week to open its racing account for the Olympic season.
The 57-strong team (23 women and 34 men) will race in the opening of three 2011 World Cups from May 4-6th.
Since their training camp in Italy some final tweaks have been made to the crews who will race for Britain in a team which Performance Director David Tanner described as our "most ambitious yet to take to the water".
Devon's Marcus Bateman, world double scull silver medalist in 2010, has been named to join Hexham's Matt Wells, Somerset's Stephen Rowbotham and Charles Cousins of Cambridge in the men's quad in Serbia.
Londoner Tom Solesbury was due to race in a second single scull for GB in an event already featuring Northern Ireland's Alan Campbell, three times a world medalist, but has withdrawn with illness.
Reading's Sam Townsend and Devon's Bill Lucas had earlier been selected into the men's double scull - although Townsend's fiancée, Natasha Page, is recovering from illness over the winter and is battling back to full fitness. She is the Belgrade reserve.
"It is a different dynamic being in a double than in a quad", said Lucas. "We know each other very well and it's been working. The big one was getting into the year 2012. Now the Olympics is really on the door step."
In Italy, Olympic Champion Tom James was named in the men's four alongside his Beijing gold medal crew-mates Andrew Triggs Hodge of Yorkshire and Gloucestershire's Pete Reed as well as reigning World Champion Alex Gregory. The new combination will be stroked by Hodge in Belgrade.
"The World Cups are stepping stones but they are very significant stepping stones", said Hodge. "There will be a lot of tactics and it will be hard to know what each nation is doing and what their objectives or targets are. It is the same game every year but the prize at the end of this year is the big one, the Olympics."
Alex Partridge, now Henley-based but originally from Hampshire, underlined his desire to race in the men's eight whilst on training camp in Italy and has joined that crew which is stroked by newcomer and Londoner Constantine Louloudis.
The eight also features Beijing silver medalists Ric Egington and Matt Langridge, both from the North West, and is coxed by world silver medalist Phelan Hill from Essex. The crew also contains four other 2011 world silver medalists in Surrey's Greg Searle and Moe Sbihi as well as Kent's Tom Ransley and James Foad of Southampton.
World U23 medallists George Nash of Guildford and Will Satch of Henley are the leading GB men's pair entry but Somerset's Cameron Nichol will race in the second men's pair with Durham's Nathaniel Reilly O'Donnell after Dan Ritchie was forced to withdraw with injury.
Scot Katherine Grainger and Staffordshire's Anna Watkins remain the headline act in the open women's squad, racing the double in Belgrade - an event in which they have twice been World Champions.
Frances Houghton, the 2010 World Champion, returns this season to the women's quad and races with Gloucester's Beth Rodford, Londoner Mel Wilson and Welsh rower Victoria Thornley.
Annabel Vernon, Olympic silver medal winner with Houghton in Beijing has been withdrawn from the women's single as she continues to fight for fitness after injury.
Thornley, who was identified into the sport by the lottery-funded Sporting Giants programme and progressed through the Siemens and lottery-backed GB Rowing Team Start programme was unaware of rowing until 2007.
"All I knew in 2007 was Steve Redgrave's name. It's quite strange how one advert in the paper led to my life changing. I watched the Beijing Olympics while I was on a Start training camp and it was amazing and I think at that point it hit home how far off that standard I was and how much work I had to do.
"It was always the aim but I knew it was going to be hard and it turns out there are only two of us (Thornley and Helen Glover who races in Belgrade in the women's pair) from however many thousands they tested that have made it this far.
"When I was younger I loved horses and loved show jumping and always thought in my dreams I would go to the Olympics on a horse because it is the best thing you could ever do. So it's quite funny now that I might be going in a rowing boat.
"But I never really thought it's something I could aspire to do until I found rowing."
Cornwall's Glover will be amongst the favourites to win the world cup in Belgrade with former World U23 Champion and fellow "Start" rower Heather Stanning, from Lossiemouth and a Captain in the Army.
The GB Rowing Team women's eight will race with two new names on board this weekend in Belgrade after injury ruled out both Louisa Reeve and Polly Swann.
Westminster-born former world junior women's four medalist Olivia Carnegie-Brown and Barnstaple-born but Scotland-based Vicki Meyer-Lake step up to the crew which will be looking to create a good start to their Olympic season. The crew will be stroked by Lindsey Maguire and coxed by Caroline O'Connor and features several of the rowers who won bronze at the 2011 World Championships in Bled, Slovenia.
There are no changes to the previously announced personnel in the lightweight men's and women's crews - which provide a strong section of the GB Rowing Team squad.
Olympic champions Zac Purchase, of Tewkesbury but now based in Marlow, and Mark Hunter, from London, will race the lightweight men's double.
"It is exciting to be back in the double full time. We will just use the world cup season as a platform to build up to the Games. The world cup season is about seeing where you are and what you've got to improve on so you are totally informed in what you need to do. It's about continual improvement", said Hunter.
Coleraine brothers Peter and Richard Chambers, at bow and the three-seat respectively, feature in the lightweight men's four - a boat in which GB were world champions in 2010 and bronze medalists in 2011. This crew is stroked by Welshman Chris Bartley, with Maidenhead's Rob Williams in the two-seat.
Teesside's Kat Copeland makes her senior world cup debut after a stunning 2011 season in which she was crowned World U23 Champion the women's single. She races in Belgrade with London's 2009 and 2011 World bronze medalist Sophie Hosking.
Stoke Mandeville's Mike Mottram, an emerging U23, has been added to the GB Rowing Team line-ups for Belgrade. He is given the chance to experience the senior world cup scene with a place in the lightweight men's single scull.
SAMSUNG WORLD ROWING CUP I Belgrade, Serbia, 4-6 May, 2012
GB ROWING TEAM CREWS LIST Named here in crews bow to stroke unless indicated. (Coach in brackets).
OPEN
WOMEN
Pair
Helen Glover/Heather Stanning (Robin Williams)
Eight
Jo Cook/Olivia Carnegie Brown/ Olivia Whitlam/Vicki Meyer-Lake/Jess Eddie/Emily Taylor/Katie Greves/Lindsey Maguire/Caroline O'Connor (cox) (Nick Strange)
Single scull
Rachel Gamble Flint (Jane Hall)
Double scull
Anna Watkins/Katherine Grainger (Paul Thompson)
Quadruple scull
Beth Rodford/Melanie Wilson/Frances Houghton/Victoria Thornley (Ade Roberts)
MEN
Pair - two boats
George Nash/Will Satch (Paul Stannard & Christian Felkel)
Nathaniel Reilly O'Donnell/Cameron Nichol (Paul Stannard)
Four
Tom James/Alex Gregory/Peter Reed/Andrew Triggs Hodge (Jurgen Grobler)
Eight
James Foad/Alex Partridge/Ric Egington/Tom Ransley/Moe Sbihi/Greg Searle/Matt Langridge/Constantine Louloudis/Phelan Hill (cox) (John West & Christian Felkel)
Single scull - two boats
Alan Campbell (Bill Barry)
Tom Solesbury (Mark Banks)
Double scull
Bill Lucas/Sam Townsend (Mark Earnshaw)
Quadruple scull
Matt Wells/Stephen Rowbotham /Charles Cousins/Marcus Bateman (Mark Banks)
LIGHTWEIGHTS
WOMEN
Single scull
Kathryn Twyman (Paul Reedy)
Double scull - two boats
Sophie Hosking/Kat Copeland (Paul Reedy)
Imogen Walsh/Andrea Dennis (Paul Reedy)
MEN
Pair
Paul Mattick/Adam Freeman-Pask (Rob Morgan)
Four
Peter Chambers/Rob Williams/Richard Chambers/Chris Bartley (Rob Morgan)
Single
Mike Mottram
Double scull
Zac Purchase/Mark Hunter (Darren Whiter)