One of Britain's brightest Olympic prospects has left his fiancée in charge of planning their wedding so he can concentrate on winning a gold medal.
Dubbed the "Usain Bolt" of the water, sprint canoeist Ed McKeever has already been selected to represent Team GB in the 200 metre category at this year's games.
Having already recorded one of the fastest-ever times over the distance (34.2 seconds), the 28-year-old from Bradford-upon-Avon near Bath, won gold at the World Championships in 2010 and topped the podium twice at the 2011 World Cup series.
McKeever initially competed in the K1 500m class, but the competition was ditched in 2009 as an Olympic discipline in favour of the 200m sprint race.
The change has helped McKeever, who is better suited to the shorter sprint distance.
Over the last three years he has managed to fine-tune his training by "trial and error" to become one of the best in the world.
But it has meant he has had to rely on support to manage other areas of his life, namely his marriage to fiancée Anya Kuczha, a 26-year-old PE teacher who he met while studying accountancy and finance at Kingston University.
The couple plan to tie the knot on September 22 at a church in Beaconsfield. McKeever admits it will be large gathering, although he insists that is because Anya is from a big Polish family.
"I am not doing too much juggling," said McKeever. "I am not doing any accountancy work until after the Olympics so that is not an issue at all.
"With the wedding stuff, I will get asked my opinion on things but whether that gets taken in to account is another thing. Anya has quite a big family so I don't think it will be small but we haven't planned numbers yet."
McKeever's plans of a quiet family wedding if, as expected, he has snatched gold six weeks earlier at Dorney Lake, may be short-lived. He would potentially be Team GB's last gold medallist of the Games but he dismisses any suggestion his success is assured.
Asked about the comparison with Usain Bolt, he just doesn't see it: "He's tall, I'm short," he quips, while any attention post-Games is unlikely to go to his head, even if he does win gold. "I have a clear plan regardless of what happens," McKeever added.
He eschews any superstitions or pre-race rituals, just checking his boat, presumably for any holes in the bottom to make sure it does not sink.
Apart from Tim Brabants and Steve Redgrave, McKeever does not really have any sporting idols either.
His first Olympic memories are from 1992 when he sprinter Linford Christie and cyclist Chris Boardman achieved Olympic glory.
But he does admit the new discipline has suited his style of racing. Each race is all over in little more than 34 seconds. By that time McKeever will have completed between 85-90 strokes, at his fastest travelling at more than six-and-a-half metres a second.
McKeever adds: "The 200 metres has opened it up to a different kind of athlete as it's more powerful and less aerobic orientated.
"You still get quite a range of athletes but it tends to be the more explosive athletes who do the 200 metres compared to the more fitness-based 1000 metres.
"You want to get your nose in front so it's really a sprint. You get out and then it is about holding on. It's pretty fast and a combination of speed and power."
McKeever started canoeing in his home town at the age of 11 after a friend suggested he tried the sport because he was good at school games.
He proved good at it and in 2001 he was selected to represent Great Britain at the Junior World Championships in Curitiba, Brazil.
In 2003, he raced at his first senior World Championship in Gainesville, USA, and has been a regular on the British team ever since.
McKeever said: "It was one of those things, you do a few races and you realise you are quite good at it. Winning races is quite infectious. You want to win the next race and so on."
