The big clock, the one that measures careers in athletics and not just seasons, is ticking for Kelly Sotherton, who goes to Beijing knowing she has one final chance to feel the embrace of Olympic glory.

Amid the sound of claxons, bells and battle cries of 100,000 people in the Olympic stadium, the British heptathlete will step on to the track burdened, but inspired by the knowledge that she will never have a better chance to win sport's ultimate prize.

Sotherton is not scared to admit she has become "obsessed" by the pursuit of the Olympic gold medal over the past four years, and her desire to win in Beijing has been furthered hastened by a season in which the landscape of the heptathlon has altered beyond all comprehension.

Like house guests in an Agatha Christie novel, Sotherton's great rivals have fallen by the wayside one by one. First Carolina Kluft, the Olympic, World and European champion decided she no longer had the motivation to continue in the event - something Sotherton says she finds utterly baffling. Then in June, Jessica Ennis, Sotherton’s compatriot, broke her right ankle at the HypoMeeting in Götzis and even since then, Eunice Barber, the former world champion, has announced she will not compete in Athens.

Instead of arriving in Beijing sheltering in the shadows of the leading lights of the sport, Sotherton has been thrust into the full glare of public expectation as one of Britain's few genuine hopes for gold on the track. But far from holding her back, it is a responsibility the Commenwealth champion is happy to burden and she insists the pressure is driving her on like never before.

“I have been focused on that medal for a long time,” she said. “That was my goal after I finished in Athens. I wanted to have an opportunity to become Olympic champion and I have got that now. I know I have a realistic chance of going for that goal and achieving my dream, and I know it won't come around again."

The girl from the Isle of Wight is no stranger to Olympic success. As a unheralded newcomer she took bronze behind Kluft and the Austra Skujyte, the Lithuanian, in Athens in 2004. But four years on there are signs that Sotherton's ambition is as intense as at any stage in her career, when asked if winning Olympic gold in the absence of Kluft, Ennis and the rest would mean less, she said: “No, not at all."

"Olympic gold is Olympic gold. I don’t care how you win it, whether it's with 4,000 points or 10,000 points I will have won it. Even if everyone got disqualified or fell over in the hurdles and I had to complete it all by myself it wouldn’t matter to me. As long as I win it.

“I don’t care how it happens or who's there, because I am kind of obsessed by the gold medal at the moment. It's what's driving me.”

Since her decision to focus her immense talents on the long jump and triple jump, Kluft has declared her desire for Sotherton to succeed her as Olympic champion, something the British athlete says has inspired her.

"It’s very motivating to know the Olympic, World, European champ times two, is saying that about you. Because she obviously has that belief that I can do it, I am very honoured that she feels that way.

"Yes she is adding more pressure on me, of course she is. But she knows that I had can work under that pressure and thrive on it. Hopefully I will make her dreams come true."

If Sotherton is to win Olympic gold, she must overcome the problems she has encountered with the javelin. She has suffered a torrid time with the event, the nadir being a throw of 29.59 metres in the European Cup of Combined Events in Poland. That prompted her to split from Mick Hill and tempt Mike McNeill, the former mentor of Goldie Sayers, the British record-holder, out of retirement.

By the time of the last season's World Championships, the j-word had become a taboo subject. Sotherton's best throw there was 31.90, some 16 metres and 304 points adrift of Blonska. That she lost out on silver by 322 points shows how crucial the event will be come Beijing

"It’s a bit like the golfer with the yips," she said. "They have been there before but they have just lost that feeling. But I feel like I have got that feeling back, certainly more than the feeling I had before.

"I am throwing better in training than I ever have. I am very confident that I can do what I need to do in the javelin to win. I know it’s so much better than last year and the year before, I can say that with full confidence. From 31m I threw in Osaka, there is 10 more metres on top of that."

Sotherton's story has many parallels with Kelly Holmes's. Both spent much of their career winning silver and bronze medals, but in Athens, Holmes took her chance and etched her name into the nation's sporting consciousness. Whether Sotherton can do the same remains to be seen. When she describes what will go through her mind in the moments leading up to her first event, she delivers an insight into just how focused she has become.

"I will be confident, arrogant and I will have that attitude written all over my face," she says. "I will be telling myself that I am better than everyone here.

"I won’t be on that line unless I have absolute belief I can beat everybody. I will be there because I want to win. That’s all I will be focusing on but only on me. I won’t be thinking about anybody else. Everyone has dreams in sport, and mine is and has always been Olympic gold, but I won’t let myself think about that when I’m there. I will wait until I hopefully get that feeling for real when I am standing on top of the podium."

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