The pounds 40,000 two-year-old machine has been frustratingly unreliable, despite the best efforts of the Dutch Docshop team to provide Robinson with a consistently competitive ride.”People see that my bike is not as fast as these guys – that I’m doing the best with what I’ve got – that’s really pleasing for me. He stands proud at 16th place in the world championship and is currently the youngest 250cc grand prix rider. As befits any precocious British motorcycling talent, the winsome Robinson is widely tipped as the next Barry Sheene.After his top 10 finish at Assen, the race director of Biaggi’s Aprilia team, Jan Witteveen, said: “If he carries on like this there could be something special for him next season.” That “something special” would be a works ride on one of Aprilia’s pounds 500,000 factory machines. However, unlike the crop of British wild card riders, his will not be an experience out of the ordinary.

For in a grand prix class that is practically a closed-shop of Italian and Japanese riders, Robinson has been Britain’s sole representative this season, scoring a pair of ninth finishes – in the Dutch Grand Prix and at Jerez, Spain. The bottom line is that I can’t control what the others do, I can’t grab hold of their feet no matter how much I’d like to. All I can do is swim the best I can and hope it’s enough.”Having an image as a golden girl is no problem. The more tangible prize of an Olympic medal, even a bronze, is the hard part.. If the subject of Ferraris is something of a sore point with Michael Schumacher at the moment, Jamie Robinson will quite happily talk about them. Like the black one he has promised to buy his mum when he wins the world championship on two wheels.

That may sound a fanciful pledge given that the dashing young rider is a mere 20-years-old, but there is something distinct about the Aprilia rider from Holmfirth that is more than mere Yorkshire bluff.
Tomorrow at Donington Robinson will line up against the best 250cc riders in the world – such as the world champion, Max Biaggi, and the rapid Japanese, Tetsuya Harada. But I’ve had a few setbacks over the longer distance in the last few years and my 100 has improved although it’s a difficult race because the Americans and Chinese are very good and there’s also Franziska van Almsick to contend with.”Frankly, what I’ve got to do is simple I need the perfect race. Once I’m on the blocks I’ve forgotten everything except what I’m going to do in the water. My head is clear.”She is also spared the additional stress of competing in the 50m, an event she took part in at Barcelona but one she feels will be a race too much this time. It’s not a case of doing well in the national championships and then flopping at the big ones. I do my best swims at the major events.”Pickering, the daughter of a Dutch national medallist, took to the sport as naturally as one would expect for someone with swimming in the blood. An asthmatic, doctors advised her parents to put her in the water to improve her lung capacity, and she has barely been out of it since.In Barcelona she missed out of the final proper but swam a personal best in the B event for the next eight swimmers “I know I can swim in the environment,” she said “I’ve won a gold at world level I’m not fazed by the pressure.”I don’t have nerves Usually a few weeks before an event my stomach is in knots.