What is life like today for Rebecca Adlington? Within 24 hours of her second gold medal in the Water Cube, she was being taken to meet Tony Blair's family at poolside (“They were absolutely lovely”); but she was also sent a link to a disparaging internet chatroom where her overnight fame had not gone down well and questions were being asked: “Why has a 19-year-old got a swimming pool named after her?” “Surely, two gold medals don't equal a damehood.”

Thankfully, her demeanour yesterday morning did not suggest that she had been remotely affected by the head-spin: instant celebrity, classic British tall-poppy syndrome and, as she has been continually reminded, opportunities to turn gold into genuine financial profit.

As the action in the Beijing pool draws to a close, the question therefore stands: what kind of a star will she be? How much will she be worth? And how will the wealth and stardom affect her longevity as a world-beating athlete?

The money first, and her reaction was reassuring, Jonny Wilkinson-esque even. Wilkinson's attitude to endorsements has always been that he is open to commercial opportunities only on the understanding that they never interfere with his training. Adlington said the same: “I wouldn't accept anything that comes in the way of my swimming.”

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She also appeared either commercially unambitious or blissfully unaware of her overnight value. What would really help, she explained, was someone such as Speedo to help out with the day-to-day costs of swimming caps, goggles (£25 each) and the monthly expense of swimsuits (£33 at least).

She also said that she “got the feeling” that her lottery-funding bracket would rise from £12,000 a year and that this might help with “how I get around, petrol prices and things like that”. She also receives an annual £1,000 from Mansfield town council to help with travel and hotel costs, she explained, adding that the price of competing at the Olympic trials alone is more than £300.

One imagines that such three-figure issues and a monthly swimsuit will no longer be a problem. What is more likely is a small, manageable yet handsome portfolio of endorsements starting with a kit deal (Speedo and adidas are the likely front-runners) and a corporate tie-up (a bank, a pharmaceutical company, for instance) that would be worth about £150,000 a year each.

What will help to guide her long-term approach is that any such commercial deal will invariably involve a tie-up through at least four years because the ultimate prize for the Speedos of this world would be to have her repeating her success at the London Olympics in 2012.

It seems, though, that she needs no financial incentive to go on through to London. “2012 was always my main target, because I'm only 19,” she said. “Not many come to their first Olympics and [win a] medal. This Olympics was just experience, getting in and racing because I'd never really raced the Americans much. Hopefully, I'll have more to come in 2012. London is going to be an amazing opportunity. It's going to be the greatest thing any British sportsperson will experience.”

More reassuring, though, is that these words and the tone of almost everything that she has said since she became a back-page sensation suggest that she does not have it in her personality to have her head turned by film premieres and celebrity sycophants.

It may be something to do with her background. Swimming does not really do glitz - the Nottingham swimming pool where she has trained for much of her life is just about to close down. And Adlington exhibits not the remotest sense of entitlement.

When asked if she felt her life had changed, she suggested that the changes would be good for her sport rather than herself. “Swimming isn't a massive thing in Britain, so if we can raise the profile, it's going to be fantastic for 2012,” she said. And when told that her home town, Mansfield, had come in for some ribbing in the media (great things to have come out of Mansfield: Adlington and Alvin Stardust), she replied: “We've lived there all my life, we love living there and we wouldn't ever move.”