ZAC Purchase peers through the murk of a chill winter’s afternoon trying to pick out the start line on the rowing lake at Eton Dorney which stretches into the distance like an airport runway.

“August 2012. I think the race time is due to be 12.20pm from memory,” he says.

Note the precision of the time. Note the animation in Purchase’s voice as, for just a moment, he allows himself to anticipate the roar of the crowd, the shout of the starter and the thought of going for Olympic gold on home waters in two-and-a-half years time.

The former Upton club member, of course, is the rower who, along with Mark Hunter, won the Olympic title in Beijing in 2008 in the lightweight double sculls on what was dubbed ‘Super Saturday’ in a great day of action for Team GB. So much has happened since then.

Purchase has met the Queen three times, once to receive the MBE for his Olympic achievement.

He has played saxophone to 11,000 people at the Echo Arena in Liverpool and another 10 million on television at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year show in 2008.

Earlier this month he became engaged to his fiancee Felicity Hill although there are no thoughts of an actual ceremony until after the serious business of London 2012 has been conducted.

He has also recovered from a debilitating, yet undiagnosed, virus which left him totally exhausted and turned 2009 into a gap year in which he hardly picked up an oar.

“It feels like I’m starting all over again,” he said, as he spoke in the boathouse of Britain’s national centre.

“2009 was a very difficult year.

“I had to step right back from it.

“I took a complete break from rowing and made sure I was well rested mentally and physically.

“It’s just as well, I am probably the laziest athlete you could ever come across. I enjoy doing nothing.

“I painted the house inside and out and that was pretty much it.”

The 23-year-old wants to race for gold again with Hunter, who as an East Ender is often portrayed as the direct contrast to the image of Purchase as the silver-spoon-in-the-mouth public schoolboy.

But that depends on the constant assessment of their ergo tests and their times in the senior trials, which take place in April in Hazewinkel in Belgium.