The nature of fame is fleeting. Christine Ohuruogu has reflected on that since winning Olympic 400 metres gold in Beijing.

The nature of fame is fleeting. Christine Ohuruogu has reflected on that since winning Olympic 400 metres gold in Beijing. The first British woman to win this title will return to parade her medal before a British crowd tomorrow at Gateshead, a no-pressure, glory-glory carnival at the Aviva British Grand Prix It was in Macau, at Britain's pre-Olympic acclimatisation camp, that Ohuruogu first learned about the woman who so nearly beat her to it. Lillian Board was cut down in the final few strides in the altitude of Mexico City by French athlete Collette Besson in 1968. She was heart-broken, but was tipped to win in Munich when she would be 22. Before then she had succumbed to cancer, just months before the Munich Olympics.

Ohuruogu had heard none of this until just weeks before Beijing. Nor did she know much of Scotland's Eric Liddell, last British athlete to win an Olympic flat 400m title, she confessed.

There was a squirming moment of embarrassment from Ohuruogu after her victory in Beijing, when she admitted she hadn't seen the Oscar-winning film, Chariots of Fire, which Liddell inspired: "My mum's going to kill me," she said, "because she bought it for me. I know the story vaguely. I'm more of a book person than a video person. I'd rather read the book and just make my notes and stuff, as a student does."

Informed that there is a recently-published Liddell biography (Running the Race) she asked if athletics reporters could get her a copy: "That would be cool," she said.

Board and Liddell returned to dramatic welcomes following Mexico City and Paris, but Ohuruogu is aware of the potential for 2012 to be different.

She hopes to defend her 400m title on a track just a few blocks from where she grew up. Where a partisan crowd will support her as no British athlete has been cheered on home soil in more than 60 years. The intimidatory pressure of such an occasion has not been lost on her.

For four years, since he won Olympic gold in Athens, Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang has been the face of 2008. So it will be in 2012. Those newspapers which pleaded for Ohuruogu not to be made the face of London 2012, because her missed dope tests, will be grovelling for interviews.

But she knows the potential consequences having seen Liu fail to line up. "Yeah, I watched it. It was just really painful to watch," she said. It did kind of make me think: Hang on a minute. If it's like this for Liu Xiang, imagine how much worse it's going to be like for athletes - not just myself but other athletes - who are going to be competing in London'. And I just kind of think to the disappointment of Thomas Daley, and how he was hyped up so much, and in the end he cracked.

"It's up to everyone, I think, to make sure athletes have the support they need to go out and do well, and not to crack under the pressure. I mean we're all responsible for that. I think in a sense everyone's responsible for the failure of Thomas, that's if you want to call it a failure. We're all responsible for that. We hyped him up so much.

"I think it takes a lot of sensitivity to make sure that our athletes are getting the necessary support - to make sure that when they go out they can go out and perform to their best."

She sees no escape from the pressure. "I don't know how you can avoid it," said Ohuruogu. "I think it'll take a collective effort to make sure that we support our athletes and give them the best help . . . And if they do fail, they fail, but life goes on. It's not for them to go and start slitting their wrists and stuff. That's a bit extreme, but you know what I mean."

Defending Olympic champion at this distance has been a poisoned chalice. Marie-Jose Perec went to Sydney as gold medallist and imploded during the hype over racing against Cathy Freeman.

The Australian kindled the iconic moment in Stadium Australia, but eased her way into retirement because the only way left was down. Fania Chalkia delivered the equivalent moment in Athens, winning 400m hurdles gold, but in an attempt to recapture that form, was brought down by drugs - leaving us to wonder if that was how she had got there in the first place.

Past history is also against Ohuruogu in a UK context. In 112 years, only three UK athletes, none of them female, have successfully defended athletics gold: Douglas Lowe (800m, 1920 and '24); Seb Coe (1500m, 1980 and '84); and Daley Thompson (decathlon, 1980 and '84).

Yet somewhere in Britain, in London's east end near the Olympic site in the Lee Valley, is an athlete to challenge Ohuruogu.

In primary school Ohuruogu didn't always win. "I was always battling with some girl," she says, declining to name her. "She knows who she is," said Ohuruogu. "We both talk about it. I still see her every now and again. She was really fast. Yeah, she was cool."