They might be at different stages of their sporting careers, and their Olympic prospects may rank between medal contenders and long-shots, but a group of athletes from the north-east of Scotland form a disproportionately large chunk of Team GB.

From Aberdeen to Lossiemouth, the first few days of the London Games will contain much local interest for those who followed the fortunes of athletes such as Hannah Miley, David Florence, Katherine Grainger and Tim Baillie before these Games and will do once they are over.

In two cases – those of Grainger and Florence – previous acquisition of silver medals will fuel one final push for gold, in the different spheres of rowing and canoeing. For those of us who were in Sydney, Grainger's relentless quest for the greatest prize has turned into a challenge similar to that which confronted the alchemists. Three times, in Australia, then Athens and Beijing, the 36-year-old has inched so close to her target, only to be denied. That perhaps explains why she is striving, not altogether successfully, to downplay the optimism which permeates her new partnership with Anna Watkins.

"It is wonderful in every way, really heart-warming and humbling, and inspiring at the same time, but you do feel the pressure of it," affirms Grainger. "Everybody is saying the right message for the right reasons. It means so much to know that it is there, but it also makes you think that there are a lot of people waiting for this result. You just want it to be right, not only for yourself, but for everybody else."

The mantle of being a home favourite affects everybody, to varying extents; the trick lies in deciding whether having 60 million individuals treating you as a part of their lives and taking success for granted is a blessing or a curse.

There is something of Grainger's tough pragmatism in the approach of Miley, who might only be 22, but whose entire existence appears to have been moulded towards her achieving her destiny of swimming to gold – and possibly becoming the first Team GB athlete to top the medal podium – when the action commences in the pool at the weekend.

Not everybody could cope with this burden, but Miley is made of hard stuff, somebody who once punched her way through a wall and who has steeled herself for these Games by covering thousands of miles in the isolation of the pool at the Garioch club in Inverurie, north-west of Aberdeen.

Yet she is smart enough to appreciate that the Olympics are famous for throwing up surprise champions and implausible tales and when asked what she thought about being rated as the favourite in her event [the 400m individual medley], Miley delivered her riposte with a straight bat worthy of a Boycott or Bailey. "I can't afford to think about it like that. I could record a PB [personal best] and finish fourth or fifth. But that's not failure."

She's right. It might be interpreted as such in the tabloids, but nobody can surpass their own highest aspirations and Miley will stand or fall on that credo. Robbie Renwick and David Carry, both with roots in Aberdeen, will have the same ambition, although, unlike Miley, their best may well not be good enough to find a place on the podium.

The task for somebody such as Florence is to demonstrate the same unfettered derring-do and mixture of technical expertise and spontaneous excellence which earned him a silver in China four years ago, now that everybody knows his identity.

On the available evidence, he is dealing with that change adroitly without losing his equilibrium. "It's about putting together the best run you can and this is one of the most unpredictable sports at the Olympics, so I know that I can't take anything for granted," said the 29 year-old Aberdonian. "I won a silver [at the canoe slalom World Cup this summer], in Spain, but the guy who came first had never won a medal before. So that was a bit of a reminder how close the margins are between finishing first and second."

Baillie isn't making headlines like Grainger, Miley or Florence, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. He and his partner, Etienne Stott, can remain off the radar and focus on their priority of setting new milestones where they matter.

"We have been paddling for a long time and we never knew if we would make the Olympics or not, but we are in there," said Baillie, who is another product of Aberdeen. "It was possible that we could have finished our careers without having done a Games. But now . . ."

These are the means by which athletes attempt to temper hyperbole and maintain their sangfroid, in the build-up to the biggest test of their mettle. Only the elite will flourish, but one suspects the granite in their soul won't lessen their chances.