ROWING pairs are not always such friends as one might expect of people who spend so much time together. Sir Steven Redgrave and Andy Holmes, who won two Olympic gold medals in the same boat in the 1980s, were famously distant when they left the water. Their partnership was one based on sporting expediency.

The first thing that you gather about Katherine Grainger and Cath Bishop is what great mates they are. Even if they were not competing so successfuly together, notably their victory in the coxless pairs at the World Championships in Milan in August, it is clear that they would still be friends, which they were before they became rowing partners again this year.

“We did a lot of socialising and now that we are again in a boat together (they rowed as a pair in 2001) there is no need to explain things to each other,” Grainger, 28, said. Bishop, 32, accepts they are different personalities. “I am the more anally retentive. Katherine is very laid-back, but on fundamental things we agree what is important,” she said.

Their back-chat and eloquence are evident as they review 2003 and look forward to Athens, with the tag of Olympic favourites hanging round their necks. However, they are not particularly fazed by the prospect; indeed, it seems to give them confidence. If England had not won the rugby union World Cup, they probably would have been voted the team of the year in the recent awards.

“There is pressure to stay at the top,” Grainger said. “It is the first time for us. But it is the biggest motivation we can have.” Bishop added: “Through any Olympic campaign, we will still be world champions. We will always be contenders for Athens.”

The pair also believe that they can improve on their winning performance in Italy. As Grainger said: “It was the perfect result, even if it was not the perfect race.” They waited for a month after the event to study together the video of their performance, in which, in a hectic finish, they overhauled the defending world champions from Romania and also the Belarus pair. Grainger describes the actual experience of the race as “slightly dreamlike”.

Bishop said: “On the video you can see what everyone else was doing, whereas in the actual race, you are concerned with your own bubble, your own boat. There is some peripheral awareness but you are concentrating on getting to the line first. There is a really strong mental focus.”

Although they were gratified technically by their last 500 metres, they believe that if they can match that level over the first 1,000 metres then they will improve. Physical work has long started to prepare them for next year, although Grainger has been hampered by a niggling back injury.

For the past three months, she has been undergoing remedial work with a physiotherapist. However, she has still been able to run, cycle and train on an ergometer before returning to daily rowing outings last week at Marlow under Paul Thompson, their coach.

It is one of the delights of the sport that so many full-time athletes are also balancing their lives with intellectual exercise. Grainger, who won a silver medal at the 2000 Olympic Games, will be studying for a PhD at King’s College London.

Bishop, who already has a degree in modern languages from Cambridge, an MPhil in international politics from Aberystwyth and a PhD in contemporary German literature from Reading, is now settling down to learn Serbo-Croat in preparation for a post with the Foreign Office in Sarajevo after the Olympics.

It will be a long, hard winter for the pair and they accept that some of the training can be “mind-numbing and relentless”. However, the academic challenges mean that they can approach each training session mentally fresher.

Bishop said: “It is always the target to get the perfect stroke, to get the timing absolutely right.” When things go awry, as inevitably they will do, they can look back to that momentous morning on the Idroscalo in Milan in August, when they were sprinting towards the finish.

Bishop recalled: “It felt great, it was easy, it was up, it was driving, it was dynamic, it was light, we were flying.”