Olympics 2012: Six golds are within our reach, says David Tanner

With so many potential Team GB medal hauls being banded about in the British press, the debate among rowers was what their expected contribution to that swag bag might be. The dispute centred around whether David Tanner, the international performance director, had targeted six gold medals or six medals.

Steve Redgrave is partly to blame for the argument because since his personal bullion raid on the Olympic Movement began in 1984 there has only been one colour of medal that is either acceptable or worth targeting. But six golds, although possible, would be unheard of and require every crew with a chance of gold to produce their best performance with other nations failing to do the same. It's like laying everything on one number in roulette, yes there's a chance it may come up, but it's a gambler's risk and Tanner may be many things but a gambler isn't one of them - as is shown by his target of six medals, which I and the expectant crowd at a sun-drenched Dorney Lake thought was too conservative. The opening race of the Olympic regatta highlighted this as Helen Glover and Heather Stanning easily won their heat and went straight to the final, breaking the Olympic record in the process.

The big question British Rowing has faced over the winter was whether Pete Reed and Andy Hodge would leave the pair to the New Zealanders and move into the coxless four. Jurgen Grobler, the men's chief coach, opted for the latter with the four becoming the men's lead boat. With all the focus on the heavy fellas, the 2011 bronze medallist lightweight four have been able to fly under the radar this season. After their performance yesterday (Saturday), and with both the Chambers brothers on board for the first time this season, that's no longer an option as they came from two seconds down to beat Australia's 2011 world champions by a length in the quickest time of the day.

Alan Campbell dominated his heat in the men's single to march into the quarter-finals. The same can't be said of the women's quad, a class in which we won silver in 2000 at Sydney - GB women's first ever medal - and have picked up silver at every Games since. Winning the silver again doesn't look likely after they finished last in their heat. Silver also looks unlikely in men's quad, especially as it's a class in which we've never won a medal. But Grobler's prioritised it ahead of the double scull and after coming second in the heat with only three seconds covering the fastest seven crews we're at least in the mix.

The aforementioned double may be lower down the pecking order than Campbell and the quad but they are impressive athletes at two metres tall and 100kg each. That physique was matched by their performance in the heat; they may have lost to the New Zealand world champions by 0.6 sec but were five seconds quicker than the other two heats.

Come finals day, times will mean nothing but that clearly wasn't the case for the Kiwi men's pair who (annoyingly) kept their foot on the accelerator when they were two lengths up in their heat and destroyed the world record. As you may have guessed, it was my own and Matthew Pinsent's 10-year-old world record, and they took nearly six seconds out of it. Gold in that event may be sewn up but silver is wide open and the British pair of George Nash and William Satch have put their names in the mix by winning their heat with the second fastest time.

The sentiment I referred to earlier that times mean nothing will be echoed by the British men's eight who came into the regatta thinking they'd moved on since the last World Cup and could upgrade their silver from the 2011 World Championships to gold. To do that they have to topple the unbeaten German world champions, who they drew in the heat, and, despite the Brits coming back strongly in the second 1,000 metres, they were left in no little doubt as to what that upgrade will require.

What was shown by the performances of the men's pair, double, single and quad is that the men's team have peaked at the right time. The eight will make the final and silver is theirs for the taking, but what they all need to believe is that silver means the same as any other position in the final - that they've failed to deliver.

If they're prepared to take a risk and sacrifice a minor medal to win gold they can, the speed is there. But it will take all eight to truly believe they can win. If one of them is prepared to settle for silver that's what they'll end up with.

I said at the start the target of six medals looks conservative; with our prospects already looking promising maybe it was six gold after all....