Britain’s Laura Muir admits she must now handle the pressure after double gold at the European Indoor Championships.
The 23-year-old claimed wins in the 1500 metres and 3,000m in Belgrade at the weekend to cap a successful championships for Britain.
The squad won five golds – including 60m sprint titles for Richard Kilty and Asha Philip – four silvers and one bronze to finish second in the medal table.
Muir won her first two major titles after previous disappointment when she had been tipped to make an earlier breakthrough and, ahead of the World Championships in London in August, knows the heat will be on.
“You can’t go winning medals and breaking records and not go raising expectations,” she said, after a British and championship record in the 1500m on Saturday and championship record in the 3,000m on Sunday.
“I’ll take it all in my stride. I take it as support, not pressure, and I’ve shown I can deal with it.
It all went pretty well. It was great to do so many races back to back. I think it probably showed that I can do lots of races back to back, so it’s looking promising for the double in London.
It’s more spaced out which is nice. It won’t be quite so compact as what I’ve done the last couple of days.”
Team-mate Eilish McColgan claimed third as Muir won by over eight seconds ahead of Turkey’s Yasemin Can at the Kombank Arena.
Muir said: “I was still awake at 3am. I got to bed quite early but just couldn’t sleep because I was buzzing from the race (on Saturday).
Halfway through the race I was thinking ‘I’m feeling a bit tired’, and I was hoping she wasn’t going to ramp it up anymore. I managed to hang in there and knew I had the kick, so I just waited and then I went for it.”
On Sunday, Robbie Grabarz took men’s high jump silver with Lorraine Ugen second in the long jump and Shelayne Oskan-Clarke runner-up in the women’s 800m.
The women’s 4x40m relay squad of Eilidh Doyle, Laviai Nielsen, Philippa Lowe, and Mary Iheke also took silver.
That followed Kilty’s defence of his 60m title on Saturday and Andrew Pozzi’s victory in the 60m hurdles on Friday, with Philip adding to the golden haul on Sunday.
“I feel like this is my year, I’ve had my injuries but I feel this is the time I can progress,” she said.