It was not fitness or power which let them down in Lucerne, it was the transmission of muscle into boat speed But there was more to it than that. In the clubhouse at Leander where two years earlier the Redgrave four had turned a similar defeat in Lucerne into a platform for triumph in Sydney,Cracknell, Pinsent and J?n Grobler had to face uncomfortable truths about the balance of schedules increasingly dictated by the demands of outside interests. Cracknell as one half of a “celebrity” couple with the ITV sports presenter Beverley Turner, and a growing sponsorship portfolio; Pinsent as a newly elected member of the IOC and equally courted by business. On 10 October, Cracknell is due to be married; nine days later, Pinsent will be too.”During our time in the four, Matt and I were quite close,” says Cracknell “We’d go to the cinema together or whatever. Now we’ve both got engaged and we’ve stopped seeing each other socially It’s become more of a business.

Last winter, we didn’t hammer each other’s heads against the wall day after day on the rowing machines We’d be training at different times. It’s not that we didn’t trust each other to do the work, but we were training on our own rather than as a pair, which is what I really enjoy.”We’re not doing this for the sake of outside influences, for corporate sponsors or whatever. It’s not our job, we’re doing it because we love it and we hate losing Above all, we’re doing it for each other. If one of you is one per cent off, you’ve both had it, and to have that much trust in someone is exciting. We needed to get that element back and so that’s what we’ve been doing over the past six weeks.”Of the members of the Sydney four, Cracknell is nearest in spirit to Steve Redgrave. On the photo of the crew, individually signed, Redgrave has written: “To Mr Motivator, the one who motivated us all for four years.” From a five-times Olympic champion, that is some accolade. Cracknell’s hunger for success, his absolute determination to be the best, was as significant a factor in the four’s ultimate success as Redgrave’s experience, the technical fluency of Tim Foster or the raw power of Pinsent.

But if the source of such competitive energy is easily traced in the background of a working-class boy like Roy Keane, it is rather less discernible in the resolutely ordinary upbringing of Cracknell, the son of an accountant, a pupil of Kingston Grammar School and a student of Reading University, where he qualified as a geography teacher.The parallel with Keane is not entirely fanciful, though. There is a restlessness in the pair of them, a shared dissatisfaction with mediocrity, a similar distaste for impostors and an insecurity which fuels a relentless pursuit of perfection Cracknell describes the golden row in Sydney as merely “OK”. Winning double gold – in the coxed and coxless pairs – on the same afternoon at the last world championships was a much sweeter moment. The main difference is that while Cracknell is desperate to please, Keane does not care.Yet Cracknell’s early career in the British team was still marked by frustration and disruption. He thought he should be in the top boat; others thought different “He was a coach’s nightmare,” says Grobler. “But there was something there which if put in the right direction was really strong.” The crossroads came in 1996, when Cracknell was forced to withdraw from the Atlanta Games through illness.”I thought, right, I’m 24, I’m on the dole and so I either get a job – though I didn’t know what I wanted to do – or I go all out to get into the four with Steve and Matt.” Typically, he gave the selectors little choice.

He won the singles trials, came second in the pairs to Redgrave and Pinsent and second out of the whole squad in the indoor rowing test. But he numbers the day of his selection for the four as one of the proudest of his life, the fact that Redgrave was willing to risk his chance of winning a fifth gold medal with such a maverick.”I did make some stupid decisions, but at least they were my decisions,” reflects Cracknell “They made me the person I am. I’m prepared to admit I’m wrong, but you have to show me why first. I am quite aggressive to be around in the gym or on the water, I am quite arrogant I suppose it is like Keane.