Emily Craig was so relaxed in the heats of the Olympics that she let her thoughts stray to her lunch.

The Pembury rower and partner Imogen Grant arrived in Paris on an incredible 11-race unbeaten streak in the lightweight women’s double.

They delivered a dominant first-round performance worthy of such an unblemished run, winning their heat by a margin of four seconds, so much so that Craig’s mind began to wander.

“I got quite hungry in the middle of it,” said Craig “I was just thinking about lunch - dreamy.”

It serves to illustrate just how dominant the Team GB crew have been in recent years.

They have not lost since finishing fourth at the Tokyo Olympics by the barest of margins and their heat row of 7:04.20 drove rivals from Greece and Ireland into the ground.

“We’ve had a really good six weeks,” said Grant.

“Lucerne (World Cup) was a really good race for us, it’s quite exciting to think we’ve actually got better since then. We’ve put down some really good pieces in training. Depending on what the conditions are, I think we’re ready.”

Craig is one of over 1,000 elite athletes on UK Sport’s National Lottery-funded World Class Programme, allowing them to train full time, have access to the world’s best coaches and benefit from pioneering medical support – which has been vital on their pathway to the Paris 2024 Games.

With a perfect build-up under their belts, they moved through the gears and into Wednesday’s semi-final with only an act of God seemingly able to deny them from winning gold on Friday.

There are storms forecast for Paris next week, but Grant feels ready to grapple with any conditions that face them when the time comes.

“We have a huge amount of confidence and belief in each other,” said Grant.

“I can’t think of any other crew in the event that has experienced as many other types of races as we have, whatever wind direction, or crews we have to race when we come to the start line. There’s always almost a race we can both reference and go, ‘OK, well in this race we did this, and this is what happened’, and we can take confidence from that.

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