Sailing: Hiscocks and Draper maintain silence is golden

The medals are draped over other trophies, gathering dust in the corner of a garage. It is up an obscure lane well away from the public gaze in the small village of Winterbourne Abbas, between Weymouth and Honiton. A radio pumps out music, a few electrical tools, given rather more care, are attached to benches and, on a working trestle dominating the centre of affairs, is the shallow-scooped hull of an Olympic racing boat.

On a cold Sunday, while the rest of the world is still enjoying the last remnants of the Christmas break, Chris Draper and Simon Hiscocks are hard at work, preparing the boat they hope will carry them to Olympic gold in Athens in August. They have good reason to be optimistic, but have deliberately adopted a low-key stance, echoing the Clive Woodward mantra of "one game at a time".

Not that Draper, 26 next month and from Southampton, nor Hiscocks, nearly five years older and from Dorking, Surrey, lacks confidence. This is a partnership, put together immediately after the last Olympic Games, that has seemed to click from the start. Both have natural talent, both are dedicated to the job in hand and both understand the need for graft and preparation. They also complement each other in terms of Hiscocks' natural aggression and Draper's sensitivity.

Hiscocks has a brooding quality that threatens explosive reactions. He pooh-poohs any thoughts of bringing a sports psychologist into play. "I just take the mickey," he says. Draper, by contrast, welcomes the occasional chat with a sports psychologist to prepare himself mentally.

The medals in the corner of the garage, including those for World Championships, are Hiscocks'; Draper's are kept at home in Southampton, mounted for display by his girlfriend. "I suppose you could never sail a 49er perfectly, but, yes, that is the aim, to sail every race perfectly," he says.

Both their supporters and rivals are less reticent than the public image cultivated by the pair, who know that most of the pundits are overlooking them to put their money on a second gold for another British Olympic squad member, Ben Ainslie, in the singlehanded Finn, or a repeat gold for Iain Percy, now teamed up with Steve Mitchell in the Star keelboat.

"There is no doubt at all that Chris and Simon can make it," says the Royal Yachting Association's Olympic manager, Stephen Park. "They have decided to underplay themselves and in no way seek the limelight. Their whole attitude is to get on and do the business. At the end of the day it is winning races that matters."

Their rivals were slightly stunned when, at the World Championships in Cadiz in last September, they took the two-man 49er class by storm. They were so far ahead after 14 of the 16 races in the series that they could not be beaten. "Winning, at that level, with two races to spare is almost unheard of," Park adds.

Hiscocks had already made his mark at the Sydney games, grabbing a silver medal with Ian Barker in the 49er, but he knows if it were not for an upset in the opening race they could have won gold. The silver just was not good enough. He is back only to win gold and, besides, "What else would I do?" he asks. "It's not a question of why, but why not? I wanted to carry on being successful at what I do and the pinnacle of that is the Olympics."

Also in 2000, Draper won the British trial in the 470 dinghy but watched the selection committee plump instead for the more experienced pair of Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield. It had hurt and, once burned, he was unwilling to take anything for granted until the official announcement had been made that he was going to Athens.

The 49er is a tricky piece of kit: sensitive to the slightest puff of wind, prone to capsize, and needing considerable athleticism to sail. However, in describing Hiscocks and Draper, another seasoned observer said: "They are a phenomenon. It is the completeness of the package that is so impressive. The only problem is that they might have given the opposition a bit of a sailing lesson and, with it, a chance to catch up."

Not if the British duo have anything to do with it. This last round of winter training is split between short, two-day bursts out of what will be the new £7.5m national sailing centre at Weymouth - plus essential preparation work on any of the three boats they have at their disposal - combined with longer, six or seven-day stints in warmer climes. At the moment that is still in Cadiz, but as soon as any spring warmth returns to Athens they will switch to the track to be used in August.

Nor are they too worried about the opposition. Their training partners are the pairs from Norway (Christoffer Sundby and Frode Bovim) and Germany (Marcus Baur and Max Groy) who took silver and bronze respectively at the World Championships. And neither is glory, much less money, the ultimate goal. "We haven't gone looking for corporate sponsorship as we don't want to divert any of the focus away from winning," Hiscocks says. "Anyway, when it comes to spending their own money, the America's Cup boys mainly seem to want to sail in Olympic boats. This is the pinnacle. The only reason to go away from it is to make money."