Grainger and Bishop discover the right formula

The British rowing team's bid for World Championship gold opened confidently yesterday with wins for all three heavyweight pairs and the men's coxless four, while the remaining Group A boats had to settle for repêchage places.

The Sydney silver medallist Katherine Grainger and previous world champion, Cath Bishop, had a quick start in the women's coxless pairs. At 750 metres, already well clear, they dropped their rate and claimed victory while hardly breaking a sweat.

"That might possibly be the least painful race we have this week", commented Bishop, a reasonable comment since they are also racing in the British women's eight.

Doubling up, which some might see as ambitious, seems to have done them nothing but good, however. "It's sharpened us up, and been a break from the intensity of the two-man boat," said Grainger. "It's cleaner and fresher when we go back into the pair". Although World Cup champions in the event this year, the duo face stern competition, and it is a delight to see them hit top form at exactly the right time.

Earlier in the day, the Olympic coxless fours champions, Matthew Pinsent and James Cracknell, started their own two-boat bid by steaming off the coxed pairs start with steersman Neil Chugani, and cruising to a dominant 10-second win. That was the easy part: three hours later Cracknell and Pinsent took the coxless pairs more cautiously. Hounded relentlessly by Italy, they had to make several short pushes in the last quarter of the race, in order to keep the opposition at bay and claim automatic qualification for the semi-finals.

"We may have been guilty of feeling our way into it," said Pinsent afterwards. "Italy just kept coming, and we were caught tactically, so we just maintained a cushion over them. I think we'll be racing the final very differently."

The experience has given the three plenty of confidence, as they now know what to expect. "It was a bit of a dry run for Saturday," was Pinsent's assessment, describing it as "a pretty excellent way of starting a regatta". The fourth heat win came in the men's coxless fours, the British crew rowing past the United States in great style to win by nine seconds in the fastest time of the day. According to the stern pair, Ric Dunn and Ed Coode: "The Americans went out like greased weasels. At 1,000 metres they just stopped moving, and we went ahead." They now have five days with the pressure off, before racing in Saturday's final as one of the crews marked as favourites for the top medals.

The remaining British results, though less sparkling, were very respectable. The women's double scullers Frances Houghton and Debbie Flood, also competing in the eight, finished second in their heat. This belies their speed, which is well up to medal pace, and they were beaten by a crew containing Katrin Boron, with 10 Olympic and world victories to her name. The lightweight single sculler Tracy Langlands also raced well, but was just pushed into fourth place on the line, and her heavyweight counterpart, Matthew Well, finished third, realising a win was out of reach.

Britain's lightweight men's eight had a difficult day. They let the United States move out to nearly a length's lead at halfway, before pushing hard to get back on terms in the last minute. This wasn't in the American script; they pulled away again, before a dramatic British charge narrowly failed to catch them on the line. The British now race the repêchage, which will give them another chance to think about tactics in this close-matched event.