Gold Coast (Australia): Steve Redgrave might be the focal point of the British Olympic team but the record-breaking rower is keeping a low profile during his preparations on the Gold Coast.

In the absence of the big name track stars of recent Games such as Linford Christie and Sally Gunnell, Redgrave is the man most-wanted by the local media. But in an effort to protect the newer members of his coxless four crew he has insisted they be left to prepare in peace.

Early each morning the four oarsmen go through their paces at the tree-lined Hinze Dam, 20 km inland from the Gold Coast, where the length allows them to row continuously for 40 minutes without turning.

In the boat with Redgrave are Matthew Pinsent, his gold medal partner in the coxless pairs in the last two Olympics, Tim Foster and James Cracknell and they looked every inch the gold medal favourites as they went through time trials along with the rest of the British rowing squad on Sunday.A team event it may be but it is Redgrave who is always the centre of attention.

It is hardly surprising. He and Pinsent won Britain's only gold at Atlanta and while it was a second for Pinsent, it was Redgrave's fourth.

He began with gold in the coxed four in 1984, also grabbing a bronze in the coxed pairs, then won the coxless pairs in 1988 with Andy Holmes. His Barcelona and Atlanta victories made him the most successful British Olympian and the first rower to win four in a row.

That took him level with Carl Lewis (for his long jumping), Al Oerter (discuss) and Danish yachtsman Paul Elvstrom as men who had won four consecutive golds.

Now, despite Redgrave's claim in the heat of the Atlanta victory that anyone who saw him getting into a boat had his permission to shoot him, and despite discovering in 1997 that he was diabetic, he is now just three weeks away from a shot at a fifth.

But that would not, as is widely reported, be an all-time Olympic record. That honour will remain with Hungarian fencer Aladar Gerevich, who won gold in the team sabre at six successive Olympics from 1932-1960 - and it could have been more but for the two Games lost to the second world war.His sixth gold at the Rome Olympics came at the age of 50 and was Hungary's eighth successive win in the event.

Redgrave, already a veteran at 38, will have given up the gruelling training long before then but he is taking absolutely nothing for granted in his quest for a fifth, especially after suffering a shock double defeat in July's World Championships in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Complacency the biggest problem

That setback, failing to win their semi then a crushing fourth place in the final, has stiffened the team's resolve and gone some way to eradicate their only weakness.

"The biggest problem we have is complacency and always has been," Redgrave said.

"Until Lucerne when Matthew and I got into any boat, people thought we were going to win. We haven't helped that because we do keep winning. We've still got a very good chance of winning, but it's not quite so certain as it was."I think that's eased the pressure on us. This is genuinely what I feel. Nobody is going to believe me, but I was thinking beforehand that the best result for us was to lose."

The opposition at the Penrith Regatta Centre on finals day on September 24 might come to regret their Lucerne performances but should Redgrave prevail, no one in the sport will begrudge him his place in Olympic history.

(c) Reuters Limited. Click here for Restrictions