If Royal Mail was working, Beth Tweddle would doubtless have received her belated message of congratulations from the Prime Minister by now. Gordon Brown was quick enough last week to honour the achievements of Jenson Button, Britain’s latest Formula One world champion, but temporarily overlooked the slight figure who, just three hours earlier, had become that far greater rarity, a British world gymnastics champion.

Tweddle is not one to covet fame and, compared with Button, certainly not fortune, but neither is she one to shy away from making her point. “It’s no disrespect to Jenson, who’s done fantastically,” she says. “But it’s a little hard that he’s getting the congratulations from the PM and just because I’m in gymnastics, which has a lot lower profile, it’s, ‘Oh well, we’ll leave her’. Button earned about 200 times what I’ve earned in my career for his win.” There goes the damehood, then.

Almost a week after her victory on the floor, the second of her disciplines, in front of her home crowd at the O2 Arena in London last Sunday, the 24-year-old is still coming to terms with the all-embracing madness. The previous Wednesday an uncharacteristic and inexplicable slip had sent her crashing out of the competition on the uneven bars, her No 1 event. On Sunday she was leading a full-throated chorus of God Save the Queen enveloped by a Union flag, while her coach, Amanda Kirby, shed a quiet tear of disbelief in the corner.

Tweddle has watched replays of her floor routine since and winces every time, not with the deferred pain from her left ankle, which is due to be operated on next month, but at the twisting, tumbling, audacity of the performance. “The crowd were so loud, I was just trying to hear my music,” she recalls. “When I landed my first tumble, I thought that it was the easiest I’d ever done, by the third I was just saying to myself, ‘Please let me land on my feet’. My technique had just gone out of the window, the emotion and the buzz had just taken over. I’ve not really felt anything like that before.”

It was as if Tweddle’s whole career, all the disappointment and delight, had been concertinaed into a frenetic one minute and 28 seconds. She had frozen in Athens in 2004, lost a medal by 0.025 of a point in Beijing last year, yet landed an historic world title in 2006 on the uneven bars. Every turn of the emotional mangle had prepared her for last Sunday. “My attitude for the whole day was just to go for it, enjoy it,” she says. “The night after my fall, I kept going over and over it in my head. What happened? What did I do wrong? But I had the day off the next day, went shopping, watched Daniel [Keatings] win his silver and thought, ‘Right, I’ll put everything into the floor’. It may have been a blessing in disguise.”

An ecstatic crowd at the O2 Arena certainly saw a very different side of Britain’s foremost female gymnast. Whereas the uneven bars require technique and precision, ideal for a self-confessed perfectionist, the floor demands real expression, not always Tweddle’s strong suit. And there was another blessing. Drawn to go first, the worst position, she had no time for nerves or doubt. Having nailed her routine, all she could do was watch as, one by one, her rivals realised magic was in the O2 air.

Though a City of Liverpool banner hangs above her bed with the words “World Champion 2009, Congratulations Beth”, put there by a flatmate, Tweddle is still vaguely concerned that the dream will end soon. “I don’t think anyone would have said, ‘2009, Tweddle will win floor world championships’, so there was relief but also determination to show people that I could bounce back,” she says. And tumble and twist.

Tweddle also has a simple message for her potential teammates for London 2012, which is little more than 1,000 days away. “Try to block out the noise of the crowd before you go out, put your iPod in if you have to and just focus on what you have to do,” she says.

Tweddle could be found reading quietly in the preparation room moments before her entrance onto the big stage. The book was Secrets by Freya North, since you ask.

Whether Tweddle, a veteran now at 24, will be in London is not altogether certain. The European championships in Birmingham in April provide a natural focus for the next six months and the temptation to defend one title and win back another at the world championships in Rotterdam a year from now will be irresistible, but so will the lure of retirement if results do not justify the hours of hard work or the surgery on her ankle does not go as planned. The aim, though, is to finish with a proper flourish back in London.

“An Olympic medal is the only one missing from my collection,” she says. “If I get there and it doesn’t work out, I can at least say that I tried.”

An envelope marked “From the Leader of the Opposition” lies at home. Olympic gold would surely bring Tweddle due recognition. Dame Beth has a nice ring to it.