The build-up to the Olympic Games has already been clouded by smog, asthma and surgical masks, but Paula Radcliffe believes the pressure is off as she plans a cathartic triumph in Beijing. The New York City Marathon winner dismissed fears that the pollution and pressure were saddling her with a crushing weight and claimed that she was ready to reap the benefit of previous traumas.

“It will be warm in Beijing and it will be humid, which I think will be a bigger factor, but in the past I have always raced well in hot and humid conditions,” she said. “It will be tougher for everybody, but in some ways that will be better for me because a tougher race means the tougher racers will come to the top.”

Radcliffe will run the London Marathon on April 13 but her whole year, and even career, is arrowing towards the Olympics, when she knows that she will be Britain’s best bet for an athletics gold.

However, she said that far from adding to the burden of expectation, the memory of Athens, when she failed to finish and was pictured sobbing on an Athens kerbside, will be a positive thing.

“I’ve already experienced the worst that can happen and I’ve come through and survived, so for me the pressure is less,” she said. “I actually feel that that experience will make me stronger in Beijing. You can go into it with a little bit too much pressure on your shoulders and I think my previous experiences will help me treat it like another marathon.

“What I need to do is go there 100 per cent fit and healthy and then just give it the best shot on the day.”

Radcliffe, 34, plans to run at the 2012 Olympics, but she is well aware that this is her last great opportunity. She will start as favourite, but potential party-poopers abound.

“There will be strong opposition from the Chinese in their country, from the Japanese who have a great record at Olympics, from the Kenyan girls and Ethiopian girls,” she said.

Radcliffe also knows that Olympic finals have a habit of throwing up a dark horse, something her compatriot, Mara Yamauchi, is hoping to capitalise on. “You have to be prepared for someone who you might not be expecting and be ready to handle that, too,” Radcliffe said.

Radcliffe’s New York comeback in November was the perfect riposte to those who wondered whether almost two years out would leave her a shell of her former self.

“I think I surprised a few people, but I myself never doubted it [that she would win],” she said. “The most important thing is that I did and I am now able to build upon that for Beijing. Having been to three Olympics, where I feel I’ve never been able to achieve my maximum potential, there is an added fire and momentum.”