Olympics: Swim team focused and ready says Keri-Anne Payne

Among them was Keri-anne Payne, the first athlete to book a spot on Team GB following victory in the 10 kilometre open water at the World Championships in Shanghai last year.

The 24-year-old won the silver medal at the Beijing Games and since then has claimed world titles in 2009 and 2011 and Commonwealth bronze in 2010.

Payne will solely be competing in the open water in London and will have to wait until 9 August, five days after the pool competition concludes, to negotiate the Serpentine in Hyde Park. Experience, though, counts for a lot as Payne takes her place in a team of which more than half are Olympic debutants. She said: “Everybody is their own person and I would never, ever say to anybody how to go about their Olympic experience because it is different for everybody.

“Hopefully the young ones will learn a bit from the likes of David [Carry, Payne’s fiance] who is coming up to his third Olympics and Jo Jackson is the same and then myself and Becky [Adlington] at our second.

“They’ll realise that going down to the dinner hall every five minutes isn’t a great thing or eating too much isn’t good but we are all elite athletes and we all know what is good for us and what is bad for us.

“So I am pretty sure there will be no swimmers running around causing trouble because we are all so focused on what we are doing.”

There has been an air of quiet confidence around the team with an aura of concentration on the task in front of them and feet remaining firmly on the ground.

That is something Payne attributes to the former national performance director Bill Sweetenham and his successor Michael Scott as well as head coach Dennis Pursley.

“It all started with Bill Sweetenham, he kind of drilled that ethos into us,” she said.

“Michael and Dennis have done a great job to keep that going, keeping us focused on what we need to do.”