Rowing: The maverick who is as keen to win as Keane

James Cracknell Interview: Losing gracefully is a difficult concept for this awesome oarsman to fathom. Andrew Longmore visits the French base of an avenger on the water

James Cracknell was taught many things by Steve Redgrave, but the art of losing gracefully was not the first which would spring to mind. The lesson was administered after a World Cup regatta in Lucerne. The Redgrave four had just been beaten into fourth place and Cracknell, who shares Roy Keane's attitude to defeat, was heading for the sanctuary of the locker room when Redgrave intervened. "He said we should win gracefully and lose gracefully, so I went and shook hands with the winners," said Cracknell. "But I've never really got the hang of it."

Not that Cracknell has had to practise the skill much in recent years as he and Matthew Pinsent have reasserted an effortless domination of the coxless pairs, once the sole territory of Pinsent and Redgrave. Then came the Australians, Drew Ginn and Jimmy Tomkins, one half of the old Oarsome Foursome, and a double defeat in Lucerne six weeks ago which sent shock waves through the sport. Not only did Cracknell have to stand in the silver-medal position on the podium for what he reckons is the first time in his life, he had to shake the Australians by the hand while absorbing the uncomfortable fact that the horizon had just moved.

Pinsent had not been beaten in a pair in an international regatta for 11 years. Yet it says something for Cracknell's growing maturity that an hour later he could be found at the bar, sharing a beer with the Aussies and viewing the photos of Drew Ginn's new child. That would have been unthinkable in Cracknell's angry young man phase.

Six weeks on and the sense of foreboding which hovers over Lac d'Aiguebelette, in the foothills of the French Alps, the venue for the final training camp before the world championships in Seville later this month, is not entirely due to the unseasonally leaden skies. For the first time in their competitive lives, the British pair will not start a major championships as overwhelming favourites. Worse still, they are not sure any more exactly how good they are. "We thought we were doing OK," says Cracknell simply. "Now we know we weren't doing OK." But they do know one thing: the Australians, experienced competitors both, will not buckle under the pressure.

These are delicate times for British rowing. Redgrave is gone, Pinsent and Cracknell have been routed by the Aussies, the form of the world champion four is patchy and the eight have struggled. Yet, in their lakeside base, the squad are still open, forthright, hospitable and outwardly relaxed, despite the disaster which befell their model aeroplane in midweek. The bits lie in a box in the dining room, waiting to be reassembled, which is a fair metaphor for what is required in Spain.

On the water, Cracknell and Pinsent work through a series of choreographed set pieces, concentrating on rhythm and technique. It was not fitness or power which let them down in Lucerne, it was the transmission of muscle into boat speed. But there was more to it than that. In the clubhouse at Leander where two years earlier the Redgrave four had turned a similar defeat in Lucerne into a platform for triumph in Sydney,

Cracknell, Pinsent and Jürgen Grobler had to face uncomfortable truths about the balance of schedules increasingly dictated by the demands of outside interests. Cracknell as one half of a "celebrity" couple with the ITV sports presenter Beverley Turner, and a growing sponsorship portfolio; Pinsent as a newly elected member of the IOC and equally courted by business. On 10 October, Cracknell is due to be married; nine days later, Pinsent will be too.

"During our time in the four, Matt and I were quite close," says Cracknell. "We'd go to the cinema together or whatever. Now we've both got engaged and we've stopped seeing each other socially. It's become more of a business. Last winter, we didn't hammer each other's heads against the wall day after day on the rowing machines. We'd be training at different times. It's not that we didn't trust each other to do the work, but we were training on our own rather than as a pair, which is what I really enjoy.

"We're not doing this for the sake of outside influences, for corporate sponsors or whatever. It's not our job, we're doing it because we love it and we hate losing. Above all, we're doing it for each other. If one of you is one per cent off, you've both had it, and to have that much trust in someone is exciting. We needed to get that element back and so that's what we've been doing over the past six weeks."

Of the members of the Sydney four, Cracknell is nearest in spirit to Steve Redgrave. On the photo of the crew, individually signed, Redgrave has written: "To Mr Motivator, the one who motivated us all for four years." From a five-times Olympic champion, that is some accolade. Cracknell's hunger for success, his absolute determination to be the best, was as significant a factor in the four's ultimate success as Redgrave's experience, the technical fluency of Tim Foster or the raw power of Pinsent. But if the source of such competitive energy is easily traced in the background of a working-class boy like Roy Keane, it is rather less discernible in the resolutely ordinary upbringing of Cracknell, the son of an accountant, a pupil of Kingston Grammar School and a student of Reading University, where he qualified as a geography teacher.

The parallel with Keane is not entirely fanciful, though. There is a restlessness in the pair of them, a shared dissatisfaction with mediocrity, a similar distaste for impostors and an insecurity which fuels a relentless pursuit of perfection. Cracknell describes the golden row in Sydney as merely "OK". Winning double gold – in the coxed and coxless pairs – on the same afternoon at the last world championships was a much sweeter moment. The main difference is that while Cracknell is desperate to please, Keane does not care.

Yet Cracknell's early career in the British team was still marked by frustration and disruption. He thought he should be in the top boat; others thought different. "He was a coach's nightmare," says Grobler. "But there was something there which if put in the right direction was really strong." The crossroads came in 1996, when Cracknell was forced to withdraw from the Atlanta Games through illness.

"I thought, right, I'm 24, I'm on the dole and so I either get a job – though I didn't know what I wanted to do – or I go all out to get into the four with Steve and Matt." Typically, he gave the selectors little choice. He won the singles trials, came second in the pairs to Redgrave and Pinsent and second out of the whole squad in the indoor rowing test. But he numbers the day of his selection for the four as one of the proudest of his life, the fact that Redgrave was willing to risk his chance of winning a fifth gold medal with such a maverick.

"I did make some stupid decisions, but at least they were my decisions," reflects Cracknell. "They made me the person I am. I'm prepared to admit I'm wrong, but you have to show me why first. I am quite aggressive to be around in the gym or on the water, I am quite arrogant. I suppose it is like Keane. Off the field he's supposed to be a really nice guy, a quiet family man. On the pitch, he becomes someone else."

Fear of failure, he says, is a stronger motivational force than love of success. His personality, his whole sense of worth, quite apart from his financial stability, is shaped by winning. "I don't want to talk about Sydney all my life and I don't want to walk up the aisle on my wedding day as a silver medallist," he says. "I want Bev to be proud of me. If I come back from Seville second or third, in a way I'm no longer the person she met."

It is a touching revelation from one of sport's hard men, one which extends to his family, Pinsent, Grobler and to the whole British team, with whom Cracknell still has an ambivalent relationship.

On the way to the start line in Lucerne, Cracknell noticed that the whole Australian team came out to cheer their pair down the course. None of the British team bothered. Cracknell might have mistaken the motive; the very thought that such champions should need encouragement would be presumptuous. But he is not sure. "There's still a lot of jealousy," says Cracknell. "After Atlanta people within the team were pissed off when Matt and Steve won because that made their own performances look bad. Matt and I are the only members of the team who are sponsored, but the rest are all putting in the same number of hours and same amount of work, so I can understand it. It's like Manchester United. People like to see them lose."

In Seville, the Australians will be waiting. But mention of Athens and the real endgame triggers a comforting response. "Oh, we'll win in Athens, I'm sure of it," says Cracknell. "Don't forget I've had to change sides to row with Matthew. I'll be a lot better by then." Losing gracefully at an Olympics was not a lesson much taught by Redgrave.

Biography: James Cracknell

Born: 5 May 1972 in Sutton, Surrey.

Lives: Henley-on-Thames. Club: Leander.

Height: 1.93m. Weight: 100kg.

Competitive record: Olympic Games: Sydney 2000 Coxless four gold; Atlanta1996 Double scull 17th. World Championships: 1999 Coxless four gold; 1998 Coxless four gold; 1997 Coxless four gold; 1995 Double scull gold; 1994 Eight 8th; 1993 Eight 6th; 1991 Coxless four 7th. World Junior Championships: 1990 Coxless four gold; 1989 Coxed pair 10th; World Student Games: 1993 Eight silver. Fisa World Cup: 1999 Coxless four 1st; 1997 Coxless four 1st.