It's probably their best chance of making some money, so if someone with plenty of other options got into the ring, they would presumably have to have other reasons for doing so, wouldn't they?A long pause. As a gold belt which Garth Brooks might discard on the grounds that it was insufficiently cosmopolitan strains to contain his burgeoning girth, Penn's response to introductory pleasantries blurs the line between yawn and scowl.Polite inquiries as to the state of his health - an enthusiastic and once semi-professional kick-boxer, Penn had hurt his back sparring in an East London gym the day before - are met with a curt "I'm all right, get off that."Stomach beginning to knot with anxiety, his interviewer struggles to head off an awkward silence with a stock question about the beginnings of Penn's film career: whether he had felt any resistance to the idea of joining what is in effect (father Leo a director, mother an actress, brother the star of Shanghai Surprise) the family business. And if he has to pose as a large slab of granite to do it, that sacrifice will not be beyond him.Anyone who saw the articulate and amusing person who made such a splash on Carlton TV's hilarious Hollywood Men poised pugnaciously on an LA barstool, being genially satirical at the expense of his fellow film industry professionals, would not recognise the Penn of this particular Tuesday lunchtime.He lounges, bulkily be-denimed, behind the ravaged remains of his huge repast. It transpires that the problem with the Penn interview experience runs rather deeper than the man's dietary requirements.Having painstakingly constructed an image of himself as a distinctive and potentially entertaining individual - putting a murky brat-pack past behind him to mature into a fine character actor; shaking off the "Sean's brother" tag to make his mark as a Reservoir Dog; and pulling off a neat star turn in Robert Altman's excellent Short Cuts - Penn is now hell- bent on exploding Hollywood's cult of personality. How did it go? "Oh, fine," she says through clenched teeth, struggling to compose her features into a mask of wounded stoicism, "just fine." He who laughs first lives to think better of it. In the ante-room of the smart Soho hang-out where Chris Penn's interview schedule is unfolding, hilarity abounds. A woman from a listings supplement had mentioned just before the start of her 20 minutes how difficult she finds it to talk seriously to someone who is eating, and Penn has just ordered a large Chinese meal.

She emerges 10 minutes later, her face suffused with a deathly pallor. They had a two-metre square flag, with four gold medals painted on it, flapping in the breeze. With the dates painted under the medals, the legend ran: "Steve Redgrave - Greatest Olympian Ever" It was difficult to argue.. They get out of their boats, and the medals are brought to them.There had been much apprehension about the Australian pair of David Weightman and Robert Scott, who had looked so good in their early rounds The two pairings had never met. But the Britons were acutely aware of a similar situation in Barcelona, and what the Searle brothers had done to the "unbeatable" Abbagnale brothers, coming back from a huge deficit to defeat the Italians. But the first kilometre put paid to the Australians.The Searles, with Tom Foster and Rupert Obholzer, failed to raise their game this time in the coxless fours and had to settle for the bronze medal The spotlight thus remained firmly on Redgrave The British fans present were never in doubt. The weather for the final day of rowing was as sombre as the mood at Lake Lanier - as it was everywhere in and around Atlanta after the overnight bombing.

But the life-enhancing aspect of sport was never more welcome The rowing medal ceremonies have a lovely touch. The medallists paddle gently up to a pontoon, moored a few metres from the shore. That may help to explain why Redgrave is still a marginal figure to the British public despite being one of the greatest sportspeople this country has produced.Redgrave's reticence, a product, perhaps, of early learning difficulties, does not make him an immediately accessible figure, but if anyone deserves to prosper from his sporting achievements, it is the quiet man from Marlow. Yet popular perceptions of the sport still focus on Henley, with its exclusivity and Hooray Henry's tipping pink gins down their craws, and summer idylls messing about on the river.

If so, they would both deserve it.There are no free rides in the Olympics nowadays, and certainly not in rowing, one of the most contested and international of sports And we in Britain are not short of fine prac- titioners The team is second in numbers only to athletics. But so stern is this sport that by 1990 he had already seen off two partners with whom he had won two Olympic golds, two world titles and two Commonwealth golds - Andy Holmes and Simon Berrisford. Now it seems that Redgrave and Pinsent may retire together after being unbeaten for five years. Redgrave's commitment to rowing has been such that he once joked that his coffin would probably have row-locks. In the same vein yesterday, he underlined his departure with: "If you ever catch me near a boat again, shoot me!" Pinsent surprised everybody by implying that he, too, would be retiring. Redgrave was already high in the Olympic pantheon with his three gold medals Now, he stands atop it. Redgrave becomes the first Briton in the history of the Modern Olympics to win gold in four successive games Redgrave's success story started in Los Angeles in 1984. She made it with a stirring semi-final when she put out the defending champion Elizabeta Lipa, but the final itself was one race too far and she was not able to get on terms with three scullers who each had the expectation of winning..