Laverick's course to China anything but plain sailing

The 32-year-old is a veteran of two previous Games but the chances of her making it to Beijing looked unlikely when she was the victim of a hit-and-run driver three years ago.

She was left for dead after being knocked off her bike by a white van on the Fulham Palace Road.

The driver sped off without even calling an ambulance and has never been traced.

Surgeons had to reconstruct her face due to the severe impact of the crash in which she lost several teeth and suffered a deep cut to her jaw.

But, with characteristic stoicism, Laverick remembers at the time being more concerned about the mangled state of her bike and pleading with paramedics not to cut off her Olympic shorts which she wore for cycling.

During rehabilitation, she was not even able to console herself with her music - she plays the double bass and violin and studied at London's Guildhall - because she had also broken a bone in her hand.

Just before the accident she had won bronze in the double skulls at the Athens Olympics with Sarah Winckless but she was determined not to let the ordeal kill off her Beijing ambitions.

"I went from one of the best days in my life to one of the worst within a few months," she said.

Laverick was unable to get back into a boat for seven months after the accident, missing an entire winter of training and competition.

In the meantime, she lost her place in the women's squad and it took two years for her to form an effective team with Anna Bebington, who partners her in Beijing.

The pair won bronze at last year's world championship before facing another major hurdle when Bebington, 25, was diagnosed with glandular fever.

The illness had gone undetected for several months because she did not want to admit to her coaches that she felt constantly tired, but she then spent much of the early part of this year on the sidelines. Bebington missed the first World Cup race of this season, but was reunited with Laverick for the second in the series in Lucerne, Switzerland a couple of months ago.

The duo's potential was then confirmed when they won a World Cup event in Poznan, Poland last month in their last race before Beijing.

Laverick said: "We won the last event. We did well but the Germans and the Chinese, who are the main competition, weren't there.

"China are the world champions and are looking pretty strong but it's difficult to say whether they will do better or worse under the pressure of being hosts. It's much tighter than it was in Athens - there are four of five nations who could win it."

Laverick, who was born in the Sussex coastal town of Littlehampton and lives in Putney, is tempted by competing in London 2012 but she returns from Beijing to a job with a City law firm and says she is more likely to "watch the next Games from the shoreline with a beer in my hand".

As for any lingering effects from her accident, she said: "I feel as if I have completely recovered, the surgeons did a great job. I can see the scars on my face but I've been assured that they are not that obvious.

"My main thought is to put out a plea that if you do hit someone make the call. Accidents do happen but make sure the person is safe before you drive off."