2012 Standard bearers: Lizzie Armitstead

I've competed in just one proper road race so far this season, the Tour of Qatar, which I crashed out of on the first day. I landed on my head and it was pretty nasty. I didn't know how serious it was to start with and I was in a spinal and neck brace for five or six hours before they could finally clarify what was wrong.

I knew I hadn't broken my neck but it wasn't a nice experience being in a foreign hospital where they didn't speak English. Honestly, even now I don't know how I came away from that crash without a broken bone. I ripped a lot of skin off my body, basically as a cyclist you slide away on your skin when you fall.

I'm okay now, although my shoulder's still a bit sore on really cold days but it's just one of those things as a cyclist.

My first event at the worlds in Copenhagen is tomorrow's team pursuit when we'll be defending our title. The girls from Australia and New Zealand are the ones to watch out for. They've posted some good times this season but so have we. Copenhagen's not a very quick track so I don't expect our world record to go but to win gold we'll need to get close to that mark.

After that, on Saturday I'm in action in the omnium, a pretty new event in cycling which has been added to the London Olympics. It's the ultimate track event, a bit like cycling's answer to the decathlon. In all, we do a flying 200m, a standing 500m, a standing 2km ride, a 20-lap scratch race and a 40-lap points race... all in one day! It's a great event for a rider who is good at everything but not the best at one single event.

I've never done the omnium before but my team-mate Anna Blyth did one and said it felt afterwards like she had been run over by a bus but I think it'll be great and I'd love to do it at London 2012.

While out in Denmark, I'd like to say I've been taking in the sights but walking around as a cyclist before a big event is not on. Doing something like that wears your legs out so I just have to be a hotel couch potato.

I've been to some amazing places around the world and only seen my hotel room or the track. That's rubbish but it has to be done and you can't even go out for dinner as it is not certain what you're eating.

You have to be quite cautious because you're trying to peak as an athlete and you don't want anything to go wrong. The British riders even carried anti-bacterial gels on the flight over just to be safe!

My parents and my grandparents will be watching me in both my events in the crowd. Now, my granny's my No1 fan and those watching on TV won't be able to miss her. She'll be wearing a yellow T-shirt reading I'm Lizzie Armitstead's grandma' and she'll be jumping up and down.

I fear my grandad will be doing the same tomorrow. My cousin was in panto recently with Les Dennis and my grandad wore a similar T-shirt. At least I won't be able to miss them as I go around the track.

Lizzie Armitstead is represented by Jonathan Marks at MTC UK Ltd — www.mtc-uk.com