It was the build-up to the World Championships in Paris in 2003 and Kelly Holmes was feeling low enough to consider taking antidepressants until fears that they might be banned turned her to chocolate-flavoured herbal capsules instead. That she won a silver medal and went on to become an Olympic golden girl, her harpsichord smile an indelible image, shows sport’s capacity for mood swings.

There may be bitter pills along the way but there is always hope. Now a national icon, Dame Kelly has suffered enough to know when things are bad and has passionate views about the problems with the British system.

First and foremost is the distribution of National Lottery funding. “To be an athlete, you have to go through so much psychological and physical pain that you have to be driven,” she said. “They need to see it as a privilege to get help and not a right. Some get money and think they’ve made it. I did it because I loved it and wanted to stand on that rostrum. Simple as that and it was bloody hard. My concern is some get it too young. They need to earn the right.”

No one needs fear that Holmes is joining the ranks of the rankled wrinklies. She may have strong views about the system, but she is doing her bit to make it better via her own mentoring scheme “On Camp with Kelly”. Run independently from UK Athletics, she sourced her own funding from Norwich Union and used the painful memories of her past – near-death on a mountain top, self-harm and chronic fatigue syndrome – to empathise with her charges. “I tell them all the horror stories to cheer them up,” she said.

She also wants to prevent a talent drain. “I wasn’t even the best in my age group at my club,” she explained. “There were better girls, but they did not make it through their teenage years. There was a huge loss of talent. I think stopping that is down to mentoring and discussing all the problems that young girls go through – the physical changes, moving away from home, their social lives.”

So much so that the double Olympic champion regularly has some of “my girls” round her house and is forever receiving phone calls, text messages and e-mails. More than 40 girls between the ages of 16 and 22 have been through the scheme, but Holmes is at pains to stress that she is no do-gooder.

“This is not touchy-feely stuff,” she said. Indeed, the selection process smacks of a boot camp from her military past. “I have them climbing ropes and then there are group exercises. I want to see what their determination is like.”

The scheme, which involves training camps, educational activities and financial and medical backing, is for middle-distance runners, but Holmes thinks that it could be rolled out to other sports.

However, she says that athletics could also take a leaf out of football’s book. “I think we need more discipline,” she said. “The HiPACS [High Performance Centres] are good, but it’s still up to the athlete. At a Premiership football club, you’re told what to do and when to do it. Then you do it together as a team. Group sessions are the key. It’s an individual sport, but you can help each other and bounce ideas around. I think we should make the facilities in Loughborough and Birmingham more like a team environment.” With nostalgia addicts harping back to the days of Ovett and Coe to fuel their misery, Holmes says that the World Championships in Osaka will show the changing face of athletics. “I think the old days, where you had someone dominating, have gone for good,” she said.

“Now I think someone will have a good year and then go back a bit. The competition is so great and every country has the latest technology. The time when we had one person ruling is over.”

There are shafts of optimism as the British team prepares for Osaka, but Holmes, who won two silvers and a bronze at World Championship level, says that the key to a renaissance is making sure that promise is realised. “There are some great performers and I think athletes like Mo Farah and Goldie Sayers have stepped up to the plate,” she said. “The question is: are they going to make the most of it?”