Sporting Life - Summer Olympics - Beijing 2008

You would hardly know it from her demeanour but there is a wave of anxiety fluttering around the stomach of Victoria Pendleton.

It has been there since she learned she was to get the chance to emulate Chris Hoy and go for a hat-trick of Olympic gold medals in London in 2012.

She calls it "the Curse" - the curse of being favourite; the curse of a nation's weight of expectation.

Pendleton won the individual sprint title in Beijing to add to her world and commonwealth titles. Due to the Olympic pursuit of gender equality, more events have been added to the women's programme in London which means Pendleton can also ride in the team sprint and the keirin. She is expected to win all three.

"It's exciting, but it's also added pressure. It churns away in my stomach at times," admits Pendleton.

"I have been very successful and people will expect me to continue to be successful. Going in as the favourite you are always going to have high expectations put on you. You just have to deal with it.

"But it makes me feel anxious thinking about it. It should be motivational and I'm sure it will be, but at this stage it is difficult to get my head around it.

"The success we've had is a curse as well as a blessing because you try to live by a standard which you can never achieve."

Yet it is the quest for perfection in everything she does, in the gym, on the track, even something as mundane as boiling an egg, which is the trait Pendleton identifies for her success. And the hard work. She was on her indoor turbo trainer for several hours on Christmas Day because it was too snowy to go for a ride.

Improvement

She says: "I don't think I've ever been close to perfection. And that's good because there is always room for improvement.

"If I cook something and it is not up to scratch I find it annoying. It upsets me if I'm late or underprepared. I'm always making a mental note 'Must try harder.'

"But we've (the British team) set such a high standard. If we are not winning golds something's up and people say what went wrong. But we can't be amazing every day."

Unless perhaps you are Hoy, who Pendleton insists she will be consulting for any mental nuggets he might be able to pass on. Whereas Hoy has found high-profile celebrity, Pendleton's life remains relatively low-key in what remains a minority sport.

"Chris gets recognised all the time and I can't imagine what that must feel like. It's pretty crazy," says Pendleton, who has signed a three-year sponsorship contract with Hovis.

"In my normal clothes people wouldn't know who I was. I've been recognised only three times out of context. Once in the supermarket, a cycling fan came up and said 'Congratulations, I thought you were really great and good luck for the future.' And I thought 'Thanks.' It was really nice.

"But I'm not in it for the recognition. I just always wanted to be the best in the world at something. That's all it is."

While London 2012 fuels her ambition, Pendleton wants first to defend her sprint crowns at the world championships in Denmark in March and then at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in October, if England do not pull out over security fears.

She says: "I would like to represent England but whatever the team manager decides I will go with that decision.

"I've heard people say it's almost embarrassing to watch the Commonwealth Games. I'm fairly insulted by that. I'm training very hard. I've put a lot of work into it. It means a lot.

"You can only race the people who are there, can't you? If people don't come then there's nothing you can do."