Purchase back in training after missing entire season

Olympic gold medallist Zac Purchase is back in training after a season out of the water.

The double sculls star, who won his medal alongside Mark Hunter in Beijing last year, made the decision to take time out from the sport to recover from a viral fatigue and is now raring to get back in the boat.

The 23-year-old Marlow rower will now work towards London 2012, but he must first navigate the various GB trials. Those trials are conducted as single sculls, with no guarantee that Purchase and Hunter will be reunited for next season.

"It would be great to be back in a boat with him and if we're good enough and fast enough I can really see it working," said Purchase, who revealed the memory of winning gold in China will drive him through the cold winter mornings on the water.

"London will be a different atmosphere, a different experience.

"Being a home Games, it will be a very British crowd and a very British atmosphere.

"It will be an astonishing Games to be part of, let alone to win there."