WHEN Sophie Hitchon became the first British track and field athlete to be guaranteed a place on Team GB in London 2012, it marked the culmination of a meteoric rise.

Just five years earlier the Burnley thrower had taken up the sport, having given up her earlier loves of ballet and gymnastics, and now she is heading to the world’s greatest sporting event. No wonder she described the feeling as “surreal”.

The 20-year-old’s inclusion in the squad came as no surprise though. In fact, last month’s trials were a mere formality after enjoying a season to remember.

The Blackburn Harrier has led the British hammer throwing field all year, setting numerous new national records, and now she heads to London determined to give a good account of herself.

Hitchon knows the pressure will be on but, after struggling to live with the expectations at her major championship debut, she believes this time round she will be ready for what lies ahead.

The memories of being left tearful at last year’s World Championships in Daegu as she failed to make the final were not pleasant for her at the time, but she is now ready to learn from that painful experience.

She said: “I hope I will definitely be a different person at London 2012 than I was at the World Championships, because I’ve matured a lot since then and gained much more experience.

“I learned a lot from just being there last year and I learnt a lot at the Europeans as well. It is all a good experience for me and I will learn from it for the Olympics.

“Making the final at the Europeans in Helsinki was the aim and I did that. I was disappointed at the distance but making the final has given me that experience that I do deserve to be here and am just as good as them.

“I’m not going to get carried away though. I am still very new to senior athletics and the goal will be to make the final in London. The home crowd were great at the trials and I can only imagine what it’s going to be like at the Olympics. That home advantage is inspiring.”

After breaking the British youth record in her first year in the sport in 2007, she broke 11 British Junior records and three British Under 23 records on her rise up the ladder as she threw her way to bronze at the European Junior Championships in 2009.

After moving to Loughborough University in February 2010, where she now trains as a full time athlete, she claimed gold in the Junior World Championships and now comfortably holds the British senior record.

Hitchon, a product of Ivy Bank School, said: “It has been a definite dream since I was young that I wanted to go to the Olympics. What event it was in or what I was going to do I didn’t really know. Even when we won the Olympics I didn’t even know what I wanted to do.

“I had not really started hammer at the time and I didn’t think much about it. I wanted to be there to watch it but I never really thought I would be in the stadium and competing. Now, thinking about it, it is such an amazing achievement that I will be going.

“The competition is very widespread, girls come from China, Russia and other countries across the world,” said the British number one.

“It will be difficult and it’s all about how our bodies react to different things. The top girls in the world are aged between 25 and 30.

“They have been there and done it before, whereas for me, it’s a big learning curve. I’m going to make mistakes and it’s how I learn to deal with them and improve for the better.”