Rebecca Adlington, of Britain, is going from strength to strength. A week after setting Commonwealth long-course records in the 400m and 800m freestyle and a British record in the 200m at Olympic trials, the 19-year-old from Nottingham is a world short-course champion. But her latest successes are mere stepping stones on the road to Beijing after the toughest winter season of a steady build-up that has been waiting to burst.

'The harder it is, the more satisfying it is at the end,' said Adlington on this particular stop-off point on a longer journey for a girl who has a home Olympic Games in London 2012 already in mind via a trip to China this summer.

'This has been the training cycle in which I've pushed myself the most. I've been crying, I've been in so much pain that I've not been able to walk. You push yourself so hard in the pool and the gym, you get out of training so tired that you think 'what am I doing this for' but then when you get in and swim amazingly, you know 'that's what's its all for'. You look up at the scoreboard, its paid off and its just the best feeling in the world. You can't describe it,' she says.

Adlington did not race well at the world championships a year ago in Melbourne. She was a little better but not by much at nationals last summer. 'But I always knew I had more in me and I worked on. I wanted that British record,' she said after felling 1984 Olympic medallist Sarah Hardcastle's 1986 British record in the 800m long-course at trials last week.

Adlington followed her two older sisters into the sport. 'I loved the social side of it all. One day I got taller than my sisters and I just got better and better,' recalls the first British woman to win a world short-course title in a solo event since Hardcastle's comeback for gold over 800m on Copacabana in Rio in 1995.

As a measure of how much confidence they had in their daughter's ability. her parents Kay and Steve booked their flights and hotel for China before trials and bought tickets for the 800m finals session. 'It's great support,' said the delightful Adlington. 'If I go to Australia, they come with me. They go everywhere I go. They did that [buy tickets] straight away when they knew that I had a chance and I love it that they support me like that. And Bill is like my second dad.

Bill is Bill Furniss, her long-time coach who pushes Adlington steadily to new heights. 'Once I get comfortable with a set, Bill goes back, analyses it and then thinks 'well, she can go harder than that, I can make this harder' - so, he just works it that way. And I fall for it. The first time I try a new set its awful, I'm rubbish and then the next week or however long it takes me, I'll conquer the set and think 'wow I love this set...'. There's a glint in her eye as she speaks. She has the spirit of a fighter.

'Bill just keeps pushing me and I think that with his training and his drive that's why I've been able to do what I've done,' says Adlington, who intends to go to college after Beijing to fill the gaps between training sessions that she would like to fill with distraction from the pool.

For now, what she has to fill the gaps is shopping. 'Any girl who comes and sits here with you and says 'yeah, I listen to music and watch TV' and all that ... no! it's not true. Every girl loves shopping,' says Adlington through addictive laughter. 'Its the insecurity and the thrill of feeling good. Every man knows it ... men are like 'no, your bum doesn't look big in this' but they don't believe you. Every woman wants to put her new clothes on and new shoes and say 'look at me, doesn't this look great. Its about feeling good and looking great.'

She rises from her chair and shimmies into an invisible gown and shoes. 'That's what shopping's about.' Now I know. Back to swimming.

Talking about her 8:19.22 long-course effort a week before an 8:08.25 short-course victory earned by persistence, terrific technique, by nailing almost every turn and by rising to the occasion of a rare home international, Adlington said: 'I definitely knew I had it in me. I look at the splits and think 4:09 and 4:10 is easy. But its not. You still have to do it. When I looked up at the board it was like relief, pride, joy. I'd proved to myself that I could do it.

'So many swimmers go through patches where they don't do best times. Then you look up one day and there it is and its such a relief, you can feel the weight melting away. It feels amazing.

Like her rivals, Adlington has her eye on the Janet Evans milestone of 8:16.. She was just six months old when the American legend blasted a hole in history. 'I think its possible [the record]. World records are there to be broken. I'm going to aim for those at the Olympics. The trials were not the end of the line.

'Me and Bill said from the beginning ... we had an outline plan ... every plan we discussed set in our minds that we want it to be better at the Olympics ... so, I'll be racing even harder at the Olympics. Bill knows how to push me on more. I do not want to be one of those swimmers who goes to the Olympics - and its not just Britain, the whole world does it - who goes to the Games and doesn't do their best. I want to go there and prove than I can do it.'

She never writes down target times. 'So many people do that. I do my swimming off how I feel, stroke length and how I feel,' she says. It shows in a controlled, rolling momentum of a stroke that she is able to maintain almost to the last stroke of races. Did that stem from Furniss's drill and drum? 'Daily ... he reminds me of technique. Its a ritual, a habit, its my lifestyle. 'Come on, lengthen your stroke ... that's Bill, every day.'

Adlington is paced in training by 17-year-old 16-minute 1500m man Pierce Doran. 'He's really positive and its brilliant training with him. He leads some sessions, then I lead others, we support each other well. Secretly we're competitive, but he's worse with the boys.' She demonstrates the attitude by reaching out a hang in a darting action towards an invisible wall etched in her mind's eye, as if finishing a race with a fast last stroke.

Adlington trains in several pools around Nottingham, including Victoria, Portland, Beechdale and the university facility. They range through 25m, 33yrd, and 36yrd facilities, and she gets a flavour of the real thing - 50m training at Loughborough only on Wednesday evening, once every week. Then there's overseas camps: 'I like training long-course because its more more relevant to times. In February, we had a training camp in Florida. It was terrific but mostly I like to stay home because when you travel you lose quite a bit of training through travel.'

She is not alone in lifting performance for Britain, which had a tremendous trials last week and in two days has won two gold, four silver and a bronze medal in Manchester. '[At trials] I couldn't believe the amazing swimming. I so wanted to be part of that. It's so good to see Brits swimming so well. British sport gets slated for doing poorly. I think its great that we're doing so much to try and get up there and gets swimming recognised.'

Did she know much about Kate Ziegler and Laure Manaudou, not to mention other rivals? 'I hear about them mostly from what Bill tells me. I don't look too closely. They're just people. I'm regarded as someone to beat. And they are too. They're just people. I don't see why I should stress myself. What I'm doing works for me, I'll stick with my own stuff ... and what's good for Kate and Laure works for them. That's great. Bill always gives me the results and updates from around the world. He's the coach, that's what he's there for but we don't discuss times that others are doing.'

Adlington has no role models. 'When people ask me 'who do you aspire to be?' I say myself,' she says. 'I respect people but I don't think they're my role models.' She might be one herself though come London 2012. Will she be there? 'I hope so. I'll only be 23 ... London is going to be such an amazing opportunity. I do not want to miss that.'

But first come this summer. 'I'll take it in stages: make the final; once in the final, aim to win a medal, rather than get a time. It'll be about who can get in and do it. As soon as you're in a final, it'll be like 'bring it on'. I can't wait.'

Adlington visited the unfinished Watercube last year and got the Great Wall under foot and out of the way. 'It's amazing. I was so tired - I was in a group that got the furthest but we forgot we had to walk back again. It was sooooo far!' No stamina these 800m folk.

The Beijing tour arranged by then performance director Bill Sweetenham as a reward for Melbourne 2007 and as a team-bonding exercise worked well. Here is a team of like-minded people, the goal that Sweetenham had for what was to some extent a dysfunctional national team when he arrived in Britain 2000. 'I love it. Absolutely love it. I a club situation it can be hard because you have people with so many different targets, just to get to nationals, some aim to achieve certain things at nationals, other want to get to internationals.

'But when we go away with the team everyone wants the same things and everyone has got attitude and there's so much ambition. I think its brilliant. I love seeing how hard-working people are. No one on our team doesn't give 100% ... and it makes me feel like I want to work even harder than them. It feeds on itself. We don't go away often enough. Its going to be amazing in Beijing,' said Adlington, steely eyes betraying a driving ambition sitting just beneath the smile.