大象传媒

Great Britain's top crews train daily at the Redgrave and Pinsent Rowing Lake - a suitable indication of the influence Sir Stephen and Sir Matthew have had on the sport.

- who paid a visit this week with the 大象传媒 cameras - won five Olympic golds between 1984 and 2000, three with Pinsent, who gained his fourth in Athens four years ago.

Many of those who gathered at RPRL in Caversham, near Reading, this week for the announcement of the crews forming the basis of this year's assault on Beijing, took up the sport after being inspired by the duo.

During the Redgrave-Pinsent era, rowing moved into the mainstream as one of Great Britain's most successful Olympic events.

In their absence, the GB squad has gone from strength to strength. Last September, they topped the medals table at the World Championships in Munich, with 11 medals, seven in Olympic classes.

In many ways they have already stepped out of two considerable shadows, but they still need to do so at the very highest level, in Bejing in August.

Although the two headline figures are now safely in retirement, the third member of the old team is still very much to the fore. Men's coach Jurgen Grobler has coached crews to victory in every Olympics he has attended since 1972.

As at Sydney and Athens, his flagship men's crew will be the coxless four, a group under no illusions about the challenge ahead - posed by the Netherlands and New Zealand in particular - after they last September.

Andy Hodge, Pete Reed and Steve Williams - the lone remaining face from the Athens-winning four of 2004 - are joined, for the start of the season at least, by Tom James.

You can keep tabs on how they are getting on through the they are keeping for 大象传媒 Sport and the Olympic Dreams programme.

Alex Partridge - who endured heartbreak when he was forced to pull out of Athens at the 11th hour with a punctured lung - has been moved from the four to a beefed-up eight, which Redgrave for one believes has a good medal chance.

However, in a change from the situation for much of the Redgrave era, rowing in this country is not just about big, heavy men who pull one oar.

Great Britain won their first ever women's Olympic rowing medal in Sydney eight years ago, when the quadruple scull took silver.

Fran Houghton (who will be writing a regular diary on the 大象传媒's 606 website over the next few months), Debbie Flood and Katherine Grainger have formed a trio who have won gold in the last three World Championships.

Annie Vernon joined them last year and the crew start the season unchanged, with three World Cup regattas - in Munich next week, Lucerne later in May and Poznan, Poland in June - to get through before the start of the Olympic regatta at the Shunyi course on 9 August.

Heavyweight men's sculling (that's two oars) has made great strides in the last Olympic cycle - both the double of Stephen Rowbotham and Matthew Wells, and Alan Campbell in the single, should reach finals in Beijing.

Then there are the lightweights, the least recognised of the squad before coach Robin Williams moved from his post at Cambridge University to take over the programme.

holds the world record in the lightweight single scull - he covered 2000m at Eton in six minutes 47.82 seconds on his way to world gold in 2006.

As the lightweight single is not an Olympic event, he joined Mark Hunter to make up a double that took world bronze in Munich and will expect to be on the podium again.

Then there is the lightweight four of Richard Chambers, James Lindsay-Fynn, Paul Mattick and James Clarke, who for the first time ever in that category last September.

Our first chance to see how all the crews are getting on will be at the first World Cup event of the year, starting in Munich on 8 May and televised on the 大象传媒 that weekend.

Redgrave will be keeping an eye from the TV studio.