Rebecca: My times don't matter I just want to make the team

Swimmers age before our eyes. In professional sport lives are compressed but in swimming they are squeezed tighter still, so that Rebecca Adlington, full of breathless precocity in Beijing four years ago, now – at 22 – has a hoary wisdom and even thoughts of retirement. The girl who emerged from China clutching two gold medals, a world record and a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes, presented to her by the mayor of Mansfield and which seemed to delight her just as much as anything she achieved in the pool, has been accelerated into maturity. Being the wise old trouper she is, Adlington is taking nothing for granted this year, though perhaps that admirable quality has been adopted in the extreme. Her diary is full of blank pages after the Olympic trials which begin in the Aquatics Centre on Sunday. As for the pages covering this summer's London games, they almost ache with emptiness, such is her caution. "I just want to make the team for the Olympics," she says, in imploring tones. "I can't explain how much of a relief it will be just to make the team. I think it is weighing down on everyone's shoulders. We just all want to know. If you swim fast and post amazing times that's just a bonus. It would be brilliant, but it doesn't matter what time I do now. It's just about getting a spot on that team." To guarantee a place at the Olympic Games, swimmers need to finish in the top two in their event at the British Gas Swimming Championships which double as the trials and also make the A standard time set by British Swimming. In Adlington's first event, the 400m freestyle, whose final is Sunday night, she is one of three rivals – Jo Jackson and Jazz Carlin are the others – who will compete for the two places. And so, Adlington's concern is genuine. This is no false modesty. It is also a way of coping with the stratospheric levels of expectation. And it was her difficulty in coping with expectation that was her biggest problem in the post-Beijing years, according to her articulate coach, Bill Furniss. "It was very difficult after Beijing," says Furniss. "She was a 19-year-old girl, she was unknown and suddenly overnight her life totally changed. Her life wasn't her own and I think we had a period where we had to learn to handle that – anybody would've. "The biggest thing was the expectation. That was the hardest thing to handle. Every time she jumped into the pool she was expected to win. It's not that easy. She's learned now – as she did before – very much to focus on preparing well, turning up to the competition and racing." Adlington admits: "I think at first, especially at the world championships in 2009, I let the pressure and expectation get a little bit too much for me. Instead of just going along and enjoying it and trying to do my best I was putting too much pressure on myself, more than anything else. "But I've got over that. I've realised that I should just enjoy it. I'm in the sport because I love it so why not enjoy it? Why put so much pressure on myself when I don't need to. It's better when you swim happy and relaxed and just enjoy the experience of where you are." Perhaps her first important performance after China should not have been judged so harshly. In the 400m, in the 2009 world championships, she came third. "But Federica Pellegrini smashed the world record. And I took two seconds off my PB." But in her main event, the 800, she came fourth. And at the same distance in the 2010 European championships, she was seventh. "It was definitely a mental thing. I'd lost quite a bit of confidence after the worlds and I let it get to me." She did, though, repeat her Olympic double gold performance in the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi. After Beijing, where she became the most successful British swimmer since 1908, she presented a profile of almost exaggerated ordinariness. Here was the Nottinghamshire girl, living at home with her mum, who had been propelled to an unlikely stardom. She had taken her first dip in the Sherwood Colliery Swimming Club. But now she had a pub named after her, the Adlington Arms, and an OBE was on its way. "My life hasn't changed," she says, rather unconvincingly. "I'm still at the same club, still the same coach. I'm still training in the same pools, still in the same environment. It's just that now, obviously, I'm a bit more well known, I get more media interest – I can't remember having this many people interviewing me before the last Olympic trials. That's very different. But nothing has changed with who I am. I've grown as a person and I've grown as an athlete and hopefully that experience can sit well on me and not be a bad thing." Furniss's observation is a little more profound. "She is a woman now, she was a girl four years ago. She's matured physically, she's matured mentally. She's not the same person I suppose – she's got the same good traits, her determination and her will to win but she's much more aware now, confident, self-assured. "She's much more in control of what she does. Our relationship has changed a lot. I'm now more an adviser. We agree things. She has a lot more responsibility now for her own training, her own performance than she did four years ago. The whole hype that surrounded what she did four years ago … she's learned to handle that, and that's a big bonus." The best illustration of that came in Shanghai last year at the world championships where Adlington battled back from struggling to qualify in the 400m to win silver in the final. Then, she triumphed in an almighty tussle with Lotte Friis in her favoured event, the 800m. She is, says Furniss, "the ultimate racer". He explained: "Her strength is a racer. You have got nothing until you finish the race and it is that mindset she has very much bought back into. "There's been a lot of blood, sweat and tears. It's experiential – you have to go through it. But all coaches know their athletes. That's why I say I'm happy with where Rebecca is. She's happy with herself – and a happy swimmer is a fast swimmer. While it's a pretty punishing regime and pretty brutal what she does, I think she's happy in herself. She's happy and confident in the work she's doing." At the London Olympics – provided she qualifies – Adlington aims to compete in the 800m, 400m and 200m. "I have not done any training for the 200 and it would be a miracle if I was to make even the final or finish top six. I am not expecting anything but it is just nice to race something completely different – and short as well. It's always a good laugh doing the 200." She looks forward to being at home. "Everything from not going through the jet-lag thing or picking up something from the flight, you have to deal with time difference, different food, you have to deal with so much [abroad] it's nice not to have to think about those things. The biggest worry will be 'how do I get down to London?' It will be amazing to have it all here." The other big difference, this month and in the summer, will be that she will be performing in front of supportive crowds. "Even my parents and my family can't wait to see the Olympic pool. Everyone is just more excited than anything, which is so nice to have for a trials. "I've done trials before but never had a big home crowd. The difference is huge. I remember when we went to Rome in 09. It was crazy for Federica [Pellegrini]. We all got excited thinking this could be us in London. That would be amazing to have because it does lift you. It does pick you up. Everyone has that little bit extra when you have everyone cheering for you and none of us has experienced that before."