University Boat Race 2013: Oxford stroke and Olympic champion Malcolm Howard remain calm before storm

The 30 year-old Canadian medical student turns out to be not only the most decorated Olympian in this year's event, but the most highly decorated in the race's history: he is the only competitor to take part in the race having already won two Olympic medals (a gold and a silver), as well as a clutch of world championship medals. It makes him something of an expert on handling pressure.

"I think it would be a bad thing if I weren't nervous," he said. "No-one has ever won the Olympics who wasn't nervous. When you've been through so many races, so many events, I think it's really neat that you still get nervous. This is why you do it. There's nothing more exciting than a test of strength, a test of nerve, of will-power."

Howard's career as an oarsman began at Victoria City Rowing Club while at high school. He got into the junior national team while at Brentwood College, one of Canada's best rowing schools, and continued at Harvard, where he was undefeated in three straight years of intercollegiate competition.

He collected junior bronze, under-23 gold and a series of senior medals in a 12-year career representing Canada, the highlights of which were world and then Olympic gold in the accomplished men's eight of 2007 and 2008, and a silver last year at the London 2012 Games. This isn't the biggest medal collection boasted by a Blue, but nobody else has won more than a single Olympic medal before trialling for the Boat Race.

Equally at home in the stroke seat or the mid-boat engine room, Howard has also raced at the top level in small boats, winning bronze in the pairs in 2006 and rowing the whole of 2010 in the single scull. He abandoned this project to move back into the big boat for the London Olympics, but not before he had beaten multiple champion Mahe Drysdale in a three-mile race.

"I think a lot of the stuff I did in the single made it easier for me to adapt to a different [coaching] system," said Howard. "And a lot of what makes you go fast in a single makes you go fast as the stroke seat of an eight. It's that feeling, that touch, which really helps the boat."

Howard's wife Erika, herself a former world-class rhythmic gymnast who teaches dance and yoga, accompanied him to Britain, and has taken up rowing as an associate of his college, Oriel. Taking part in bumps racing in February, she decided her husband was "certifiably insane" to be planning to row top intensity for over 17 minutes this weekend. But her support means a great deal to the Canadian, who first lived at home while in the national squad, then with his mother and fiancée last year.

"I was very lucky to have two very loving people who helped me get through the 2012 Olympics," he said.

"I'm sure that's part of the reason why I could carry on rowing for so many years. The guys laugh at this, but there's no better living arrangement for an athlete than living with your mom and your wife - if they get on."

The Boat Race reminds him of the boxing-match style 'dual' races he took part in at Harvard, and he feels he is particularly suited to the endurance of a longer race. Howard has his own ways of coping with the pain.

"You should never dwell on it, or think that it's wrong. There's a reason why you're hurting, this is how it should be.

"I came in with no preconceptions about the rowing, but it's been genuinely fun," Howard said.

"You spend a long time on a national team and you can be very set in your ways, and you always wonder how you're going to adapt in a different system."

And he's relished exercising his mental muscles again, after years as a full-time athlete. He said: "It's been incredible to get back in the swing of things academically - it was difficult but it's been awesome."

Post Boat Race the Canadian faces a difficult choice. He is ready to apply to medical school now, but will not commit himself on the subject of retirement versus going for a third medal in Rio 2016. The break from his national team has been timely, since Canadian rowing suffered a major political upheaval after the Olympics, and he has not ruled out going back.

"If you enjoy it still you don't want to stop."

Before that there is the little matter of stroking a crew in the most famous rowing race in the world.

"We trust him to lay down an indestructible rhythm over the course," Alex Davidson, the Oxford president, said.

"Howard raises the bar and makes everyone around him better," his former Harvard crew-mates are reported as saying.

There is a reason he has been put in the hot-seat ahead of the highly-experienced stroke Constantine Louloudis. Together they are a pretty special combination.