Rowing: Henley atmosphere attracts the cream

Henley Royal Regatta will open at exactly 9am today when Mike Sweeney, its chairman, standing immaculate in white ducks and blue blazer in the bows of "Argonaut", a fifty foot, supremely elegant, open launch, drops his flag to start a heat of the Thames Challenge Cup between Curlew Rowing Club and London Rowing Club C crews.

They will forgive being described as small fry alongside Matthew Pinsent and James Cracknell, who tomorrowbegin their journey to Sunday's final of the Goblets for coxless pairs. But they and the 1,600 other oarsmen will feed the crowds a diet of 283 races over the five days.

Henley, which is outside the standard regatta calendar for top internationals, still sees them employing excuses to break their training schedules to mop up the atmosphere.

Pinsent and Cracknell claim they enter because "we both live here and train on this stretch of the river, so naturally we want to perform well in front of our home crowd," but they admit "it has an incredible atmosphere because people are so close all the way down the track".

Henley gives a first taste of Europe to some serious north American crews, including the Canadian eight coached by Mike Spracklen, who made his name just down stream in Marlow with its most famous son, Sir Steve Redgrave.