SOON after Great Britain’s coxless four of Steve Williams, Alex Partridge, Peter Reed and Andy Hodge had crossed the finish line to take gold in the World Championships in Japan in September, they were looking towards their next challenge. “Within 20 minutes I was thinking, ‘Right, how are we going to win next year,’ ” Partridge said.

It was the culmination of a season in which Britain’s flagship boat had remained unbeaten in 13 outings, had won three World Cup gold medals along the way and had proved itself a worthy successor to the four stroked by Matthew Pinsent to Olympic triumph in Athens a year earlier.

Yet if anyone had a right to rest on his laurels, for a short time at least, it was Partridge. After all, this is the man who had been part of the Pinsent line-up until a collapsed lung ended his dreams only 38 days before the Olympic final. He was replaced by Ed Coode and had to watch from home as a boat that, in tribute, had been embossed with his name, carried Pinsent to his fourth Olympic gold medal.

But there is little time for sentiment in a Britain rowing squad who have grown accustomed to success. While the feats of Sir Steve Redgrave, who won five Olympic gold medals, and Pinsent have seared themselves into the collective memory of the nation, there is no looking back for Jürgen Grobler, the head coach, and his elite rowers. What’s done is done.

Which is why Partridge, at 24, is able to leave a painful period behind and move on. He knows that without Redgrave and Pinsent the sport would not have the profile it does, but equally he refuses to bow to the pressure of following on from such giants of the sport.

“I was clear in my mind at the start of the year that I wanted to win the World Championship,” he said. “We wanted to be world champions. We wanted to be the fastest four there ever was. It was nothing to do with Matthew [Pinsent], or James [Cracknell], or Steve [Williams]. They set the standard and we want to do better. I don’t even think about what they’ve achieved.

“We have proved as a unit that we can go very fast. But we have to prove as individuals to Jürgen that we [still] deserve to be in that boat and that we can still make it go faster. I would like to stay in this boat because it’s a unit that’s showing real speed. We can compare it to the Athens four [Pinsent, Cracknell, Williams and Coode] and the four before that [Redgrave, Pinsent, Cracknell and Tim Foster]. But I can’t take my place for granted.”

This week the squad set off for warm-weather training in Cyprus and Partridge, all 6ft 4in and 16st of him, is frustrated to be carrying an injury once more. With tendinitis in a hamstring, he has been receiving regular treatment and cortisone injections at the elite training centre at Bisham Abbey, Buckinghamshire, while maintaining his upper-body strength in the gym. At this level, the rowers train and row seven days a week, splitting their time between Bisham and Henley. Training programmes are closely monitored and immensely gruelling. But when the difference between winning and losing can be measured in tenths or even hundredths of a second, every advantage, however small, has to be sought. What the rowers seek is technical excellence combined with strength and stamina.

“There are very efficient ways to move a boat and they are very difficult to achieve,” Partridge said. “You are stressing your body over six minutes and you have a huge amount of fatigue that you wouldn’t have in another sport and all four of you have to maintain that technical movement. If anybody falls apart, the whole crew will break down.

“The muscle memory is there so that when we’re going flat out and the red mist closes in, you can still rely on the fact that your body will do what you’re asking of it.

“Sometimes you go out and it’s terrible. Our aim is to narrow the difference between our worst day and our best day. Jürgen says we must be able to win the Olympics on our worst day.”

Inevitably, it is the Olympic dream that most drives on athletes at this level. The hard part is keeping fresh and learning to cope with the inevitable niggles that will arise in such a close-knit, competitive group.

Partridge admits that the rowers “can drive each other nuts”, saying: “Someone might be constantly tapping his fingers, another might be chewing gum, and you’ve had three months of it.”

For his part, he finds it difficult to switch off after a race and knows how irritating that can be. “We’ve had hugely explosive meetings,” he said, “but those are the tensions that you have to overcome.”

Ultimately, they realise that they have to pull in the same direction to achieve their individual aims, although the Beijing Olympics in 2008 must seem a long way away.

As winter sets in, only hard graft beckons. The rowers are preparing for a racing season that will climax with the World Championships, on home waters at Eton, and looking forward to more success. Partridge says that he fancies the idea of climbing Mount Everest. For now, though, he has other peaks to conquer.