“We have a little post mortem,” he answers.Their results speak for themselves. Unbeaten since Barcelona, Redgrave and Pinsent have to be the most successful, and awesome, sporting partnership in any field. Ask for their statistics and the former Oxford student struggles to keep up with the impressive figures.”Well, we’ve won all four World Championship titles, plus the Olympics, of course. We lost about three races in our first year together, but since Barcelona it’s been something like 85 wins on the trot. What I do know is that our main goal was to win the gold at Atlanta, but the secondary goal was to win everything. No crew’s ever done that before.”So who is counting? Pinsent has even managed to turn his one experience of adversity during this period into a positive bonus for the pair of them, following his seemingly soul-destroying University Boat Race performance in 1993 when, as the Oxford president, he led his crew to a dismal defeat by a pumped-up Cambridge who had singled out the Olympic gold medallist as their main target for motivation.”I was flattered that Cambridge found me to be such a threat,” he said, “but it was still a low point I didn’t do a good job, that’s for sure.

I’m not giving Steve absolute power, but he knows what he’s doing.” And what happens if he’s wrong? Pinsent smiles. There’s not much time, and therefore no point in having any kind of dialogue, so it means that, whether I think he’s right or wrong, I’ll do it. Although neither of us do this for fame or fortune, I’m getting more exposure and earning potential through being with him. Besides, you can’t take away what he’s achieved, can you? For me to complain about him getting more interest would be a bit churlish under the circumstances.”So is Redgrave still the dominant partner, or has Pinsent, an internationally experienced and successful oarsman in his own right, redressed the balance? “Oh, I’d say since Barcelona we’re more on a level,” Pinsent said “We’re a lot closer than we used to be.

But Steve’s still happiest being the leader in the boat.”It makes sense that he should be because, apart from his experience and achievements, it’s a lot easier for him to shout at me, than for me to turn my head and look behind me during a race. Even Steve, if this had been put to him, would have totally denied this.”The people who matter to me, in rowing, my family and friends, understand that we are a true partnership I look at it as my good fortune that Steve’s my partner. “Mind you, in four years I have only once been annoyed by this imbalance. Someone wrote that they used to say that John McEnroe would win doubles matches with anyone, and it was the same with Redgrave. But after Barcelona I definitely felt as if I had earned a lot of respect from Steve. It was, if you like, my right of entry.”The balance is still not quite level, for while Pinsent enters the Atlanta Olympics poised to win a second gold medal, a staggering performance by anyone’s standards, it just so happens that the bloke who sits behind him in their boat bellowing orders is looking at collecting a fourth successive gold medal. As a result, judging by the coverage over the past few months, some people could be forgiven for thinking that Redgrave rows the boat by himself.Pinsent laughs wearily “Tell me about it,” he says.