Sex sells at the Olympic Games. From Denise Lewis wearing nothing but bodypaint to Victoria Pendleton sitting naked on her bike, a timeline of cover girls has gleefully merged physical fitness and beauty. “I don’t want to walk around with something stuck on my bottom,” Britain’s latest sprint starlet said after receiving a bum deal from the Dwain Chambers saga.

Jeanette Kwakye is on the way up. She won a silver medal at the World Indoor Championships in Valencia a week ago and broke a 22-year British record, but her feat was largely ignored as the global focus switched to Chambers’s attempt to win gold for the team who did not want him. Whatever happens with Chambers and any challenge to the British Olympic Association bylaw, Kwakye will be around for longer.

She will be 25 on Thursday and gave up her part-time job at a steel supplier in Enfield only on Christmas Eve. She did not make the top 50 in the

100 metres last year but reduced her personal best for the 60 metres from 7.17sec to 7.08 in Spain last Friday. Now she wants to fill the void among British women sprinters, but she will do it her way.

“I’m well aware that I look awful when I run,” she said. “What you see is what you get. I don’t have a persona. I’m quite animalistic in my thinking. I get aggressive. My body is taken over. I don’t care if it looks like I am possessed for seven seconds if I get what I’ve worked so hard for.”

Breaking Bev Kinch’s record is one thing, but can Kwakye build on it and become a force outdoors? It is a huge ask because, although Abi Oyepitan made the Olympic final in 2004, the dearth of fast British women has been highlighted by Kathy Cook’s 100 metres record of 11.10sec coming up to its 27th anniversary.

“When it comes to championship performances, I’ve never had a British woman to look up to and say, ‘Wow, you’re amazing, I’m going to do that.’ It’s unbelievable,” she said. “A lot of young sprinters have come through, but they’ve never been able to take it up to the next level, whether through injury or personal circumstances.”

Kwakye has the disadvantage of being only 5ft 3in, although she points out that she is taller than Angela Williams, the American who pipped her to gold by two hundredths of a second last week. “Technically, I had to change so much because of my size,” she said. “I can’t get round the bends as quick because I’m a lot shorter, so I have to stay on the ground longer and really go as hard as I can. It’s power-based with me.”

She plans to boost her power this year by running in more 200 metres races and is aware of what she needs to achieve if she is to threaten the Jamaicans and Americans. “Historically, the world’s best sprinters have run 7.0 indoors and sub-11 out,” she said. “If I’m going to be a world-class sprinter, I’ve got to start thinking sub-11 times.”

That is a tough proposition, given that her best time is 11.26, set at last year’s World Championships in Osaka, but she says that she underperformed in Japan and shaving almost a tenth of a second off her indoor time bodes well. Certainly, Cook’s British mark could come under threat.

In the meantime, Kwakye is being sponsored by her former employer, Rimex Metals. “They have been fantastic,” she said. “I get lottery money, but you always need more. I put it aside for a rainy day because I’ve had some in the past and expect a few more, because it’s the nature of the beast.”