Do you ever miss being part of a team?
Sometimes I do, there are times when competing individually can be lonely, for example when you’re preparing to race and you’re by yourself. Being part of a team and doing it together can be highly rewarding, but I spent many years as part of a team and I’m quite happy now doing it as an individual.

What did your training for the Beijing Olympics involve?
During the last few months leading up to the Games I was a lot more focused, I spent a lot more time in the velodrome, going on training camps and having long stints away to focus entirely on training, recovery, away from distractions and all the hype. We closely monitor our training programme and how we’re developing. You do years and years of training and you’ve got one specific day to give the best performance of your life so it’s all about everything coming together – it can be quite scary.

How did it feel when you stepped on the podium as the gold medalist?
Immense relief really. It’s quite an odd sensation because beforehand you’ve run through the different scenarios in your head and how it would feel – as motivation you use the image and your perceived feelings of what it would be like to receive the gold medal then to actually be there in that moment, having it happen for real was just amazing. I remember standing there thinking, ‘just take it in and remember this feeling’. I almost wish I could go back and do it again or have a longer break between racing and having a medal ceremony though, because you finish the race exhausted, and then the media pull you one way, drug testers another and suddenly it’s the ceremony and you’re trying to take everything in, but you feel like collapsing.

The British cycling team was hugely successful in Beijing, how did it feel to be part of it?
To be an Olympic champion is one thing, but to be part of an Olympic team with so many other winners makes it even better. When Team GB won the first few gold medals, we knew our athletes were on form and that our preparation was spot on; we were going to live up to expectations. You feel that you don’t want to let the side down and you have to get that gold medal, it’s that extra push to contribute to the team. You live the win of everybody’s medals again and again, which is brilliant.

Do you think there was a new mentality in the British Olympic camp, a feeling that coming second wasn’t good enough?
I think that attitude of it’s gold or nothing was definitely put in place a few years ago, and the results and rewards of that became obvious at the World Championships in xx and then in Beijing. We went into the Games knowing it was all about winning gold, and nobody accepted that silver or bronze was good enough.

Do you have your sight set on London 2012 – Olympic success in front of a home crowd?
Yes I think so, though I’m taking it a year at a time. One of the disappointments for me at the Beijing Olympics was the atmosphere, it was pretty deadpan and that kind of took the edge off the performance and my memories of the Games. So to perform in front of a home crowd would make it extra special and be a great finish to my career. I think the fact that the next Olympics Games is in London is a deciding factor for many athletes to carry on until then; it’s going to be such a memorable occasion. London has an opportunity to make a fantastic Games, but the general public needs to realise how important they are in that. They might not think they’re playing a part, that they’re just there to watch, but believe me they’ll make the atmosphere, and make the Games what they are. For me as an athlete the overriding experience of the Olympics was not winning the gold medal, but what it was like to be there. 

After Beijing you were thrust into the media spotlight more than ever, how did you find that attention?
That was one of the hardest things in the whole of my sporting career – learning to deal with the success, what that means and who you have to become after that. Suddenly the media were delving into me as a person, not just as an athlete, and I was being bombarded with expectations and demands from every angle. People put you on a pedestal and that was pretty hard to deal with, just knowing that all of a sudden you’ve become an inspiration. You live a simple, regimented life as an athlete and for your lifestyle to suddenly change so much is quite overwhelming.

Do you think schools in the UK do enough to encourage children into sports?
There have been a lot of developments with sport in schools and at grass roots level. A lot of governing bodies of different sports have set up schemes to get children involved in sport, but I just feel that a lot more could be done. Sports teaches so many good life skills and not everything can be taught through classroom education, sometimes you need a different stimulus to inspire that skill or personal development. We should really give kids a good balance in life; I may have never found my sport if it hadn’t been for that coach.

Do you think being a professional sportsperson is about mentality and talent?
It’s equally mentality and talent. You’ve got to have the mentality to be disciplined and work hard at it, to push yourself and to deal with the pressure, stress and obstacles that come along. Success comes from being able to deal with this. Of course there are times when you question why you’re doing it, sometimes in training sessions or when you’re really exhausted you just think, ‘I could just stop this now, I don’t have to do this, why am I doing it?’ But then you’ve got that end goal, and if you want it enough you’ll carry on doing it.

Do you feel successful?
Incredibly successful for sure but I still think I can have more success in sport, having been in cycling for a short amount of time I know that there’s more that I can do and I’m looking forward to exploring that. I believe there are more medals for me to win. The next phase is moving to London to win gold in front of a home crowd, and it would be nice to see if I could go for winning more than one gold there with maybe another discipline within cycling. But we’ll see, one step at a time.