Rebecca Adlington arrived here as the fastest woman in the world in the 800metres freestyle. She will carry a loftier status with her to the blocks in lane four at the Water Cube tomorrow: an unexpected Olympic champion in the 400 metres on Monday, the 19-year-old from Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, became an Olympic record-holder last night, setting a European, Commonwealth and British record of 8min 18.06sec in the heats.

Only one time remains a target for Adlington, a mammoth one at that, the only world record in the sport to have survived from the 1980s and the only current standard in the sport to pre-date this millennium. The legendary Janet Evans, of the United States, recorded 8:16.22 on August 20, 1989. Four days shy of the mark's 19th anniversary, Adlington, closer to Evans than any woman has been, will care little about the clock.

“I can't believe that time, I'm very happy,” the first British woman to bear the title ‘Olympic Swimming Champion' in 48 years, said. “It's going to be a good race on Saturday. Can't wait.”

A second gold medal would make Adlington the most successful British swimmer of the modern era. Henry Taylor will be tough to beat: he was the star of the London Games in 1908, with three gold medals, an achievement that coincided with the foundation of Fina, the sport's world governing body, which has arranged front-row tickets for Adlington's parents after The Times revealed that they had been duped into buying fake ones for their daughter's big moment, at a cost of more than £1,000. “We can't wait,” Kay, Adlington's mother, said.

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The prospects for the 16-length race are tantalising, particularly after five of the fastest women to race 800metres fell by the wayside. Laure Manaudou, the Olympic and World Championship silver medal-winner from France, and Federica Pellegrini, of Italy, the 400metres world record-holder who was beaten into fourth place in that event by Adlington and Joanne Jackson, her Great Britain team-mate, did not race, while the heats removed three key rivals.

Out went Katie Hoff and Kate Ziegler, the world champion, of the United States, while Ai Shibata, the defending champion from Japan, slumped to 27th place. Doing her bit to keep the wolves at bay for Adlington was Cassie Patten, a team-mate and a 10km marathon medal hope next week. Last night, she was celebrating her first appearance in an Olympic final after wiping four seconds off her best time to claim the last available lane, in 8:25.91.

There is plenty of danger left. Camelia Potec, of Romania, the Olympic champion in the 200metres in 2004, sailed through to the final with the second-best time of 8:19.70, one of seven personal-best times that were set in the five heats. The one who fell short of her best was Alessia Filippi, of Italy.

They will all know, however, that Adlington sits at the helm of a confident Britain team that is arriving at the starting blocks no longer fearing the outcome but relishing the race. Take Elizabeth Simmonds, 17 and now a British record-holder after progressing to the semi-finals of the 200metres backstroke as second-fastest behind Kirsty Coventry, the favourite from Zimbabwe. Simmonds was inside world-record pace at 50 metres before easing into a rhythm that delivered a time of 2:08.66 inside the time in which Katy Sexton became the first British woman to win a world title back in 2003 at the heart of the Bill Sweetenham revolution.

Sexton is coached by Mark Foster these days. She will have drawn little comfort from, the Team GB flag-bearer, had a disappointing day, finishing 23rd in the heats of the 50metres freestyle at his fifth Games. At 22.35sec, Foster was well down on his best in waters that will required a time has never done to make the final. The 38-year-old preferred to talk about the team's performance rather than his own, which was understandable in the circumstances. But given that it is widely acknowledged that Sweetenham's spirit and work is very much at work in the Simmonds generation now breaking through to challenge for medals, did he regret waging war on the former performance director? “No,” he said. A nearby snigger was heard from a cluster of Australian hacks who fell about laughing when Foster was made the first British flag-bearer never to have won a medal. “That'll send the right signal,” said one. Sweetenham would have agreed but prefers to comment only on Britain's bright future these days.

“I can't tell you how happy or how proud I am for the whole team,” he said. “I am sure the best is yet to come.” he said far away at a farmstead near Mount Isa in the Australian Outback, labelled a bully by Foster, cleared of that infamy by an official inquiry before he left Britain but confident that Britain is well down the road of shaking off a tradition of celebrating mediocrity. Simmonds noted that every single British record on the books barring one belongs to a member of the Olympic team in Beijing.

The effect of a new generation of bodysuits, which has trimmed personal-best times by an average of 2 per cent across the board of standards, nations and disciplines, cannot be denied. Better perspective is to be found in how close to the best Britain are getting.