An Olympics fan waves a flag in Trafalgar Square ahead of the London Games (Reuters)
Featuring at your home Olympics brings a certain degree of pressure but competing in London will definitely be an advantage for the British team.
While we were at our training camps, we were so isolated and in a bubble, concentrating on what we're doing. That's important for us in terms of preparation.
So I didn't really have an appreciation of expectation or pressure for a long time. It hit us when we got back to the UK and we started to see news coverage. It will build even more once the events start. But the pressure is internal and on ourselves.
For Great Britain, anything less than gold in coxless four will not be good enough, although I'll be very happy with any medal. It'll be so much more than anything I've had before. But I'm really looking for one medal and that's all.
So we put the pressure on ourselves and the coach puts the pressure on us. That's the way we have to work. We can't worry too much about what's going on around us.
That said, it's nice to have support. The other day I got sent a video on Facebook from a group of people from school. I haven't spoken to these people for 10 years since I left school yet they've made this video for me. It was a shock. It bought a tear to my eye. I couldn't believe they had been bothered to go out and do this. I didn't realise that people knew about it or cared. That made me realise not just what it means to me and my close family, but also to people who I know and who I've come across over the years.
I've got a two-and-a-half-year-old son and, along with these people, he provides me with a massive incentive to do him proud. I want him to go to school in five years time and say 'my daddy won Olympic gold in London'.
Two-times world champion and gold medal contender for Great Britain's coxless four in London Alex Gregory will be blogging for Eurosport-Yahoo! during the 2012 Olympic Games.