London 2012 Olympics: Christine Ohuruogu's on the comeback trail and ready to deal with pressures What does comes as a major surprise, however, for an athlete raised barely a mile from the Olympic Park, is Ohuruogu's complete lack of sentimentality towards the Olympics generally and the London Games in particular. She has been to the stadium once when it was a building site but has no desire whatsoever to check it out on completion. As a schoolgirl the Olympics scarcely registered which is possibly not what the image makers and Locog want to hear. Ohuruogu was interested only in netball and netball was a Commonwealth Games sport so the Olympics were of no consequence. And anyway the television at home was often broken and her brothers normally wanted cartoons on the occasions when it was working. "As a kid growing up I never followed the Olympics at all," says Ohuruogu as if admitting some character flaw or personality disorder "I sometimes think I shouldn't say that but it is the truth so there you have it. The Olympics was something that never crossed my mind and I never watched it. I have no Olympic memories at all until I found myself competing in the 2004 Games at Athens. I was always out playing with my brothers or playing netball. Not unlike another great British Olympian Daley Thompson, who grew up without a TV in his early days, Ohuruogu therefore had no great British athletics role model or Olympic heroes in her teens and there is nobody she has consciously tried to emulate. She is very much her own creation which has always set her apart a little. She wasn't really part of the athletics system and Ohuruogu approaches the Olympics, and indeed other big Championships, in her own distinctive way. She doesn't buy into the hype and is more than happy to be heading for Irvine California soon for a big training block. One of the things I remember most when I broke into the GB squad for the Athens Olympics and I was beginning to compete on the big stage, was the GB Head coach Dave Collins, who was a psychologist advising me to just to pretend I was putting in a normal track session with friends at the Mile End track. I adopted that philosophy then and have carried it with me pretty much throughout the rest of my career no matter which arena I walk into. I am sure the London Olympic Stadium will be great and all the home support wonderful but really until after my last race I shall pretend its my empty stadium and I am back on my training track because that's how I perform at my best. I can't see any point on going on a visit now, I won't glean anything from the experience. As long as its got eight lanes, I will be happy. Ohuruogu dismisses the notion that she was one of the favourites before she won gold at the Beijing Olympics, just as she discards the idea that she is possibly an outside bet for gold this time around. " In recent years the women's 400m fields have always been strong and pretty open," she said. Somebody can suddenly emerge in Olympic year - that can happen in any event - but you just deal with it. I have always had my way of doing things, I don't really care what other people are saying and doing. That's the only way sport can work for me. So everything to play for, no reason why you can't win gold again? Ohuruogu fixes me with the kind of stare she used to save for one of her brothers when they were playing up: "Well not unless you can think of one." Ouch. Ohuruogu may no longer be the "face of London 2012" but the fires still burn and she could yet emerge as one of the its biggest home stars - even if in her mind's eye she will be running at a deserted Mile End Stadium and waving to empty Grandstands. Adidas are the Official Kit Provider for Team GB and ParalympicsGB. #takethestage