Rebecca Adlington admits she has struggled to deal with the demands of being a double Olympic champion.

The 20-year-old became an overnight superstar last summer after breaking the 800metre freestyle world record and winning two gold medals in Beijing.

That success led to a head-turning year in which the additional demands on Adlington's time impacted on her training programme and ultimately affected her performances in the pool.

Adlington returned from the world championships content with two bronze medals, from the 400m freestyle and 4x200m, and bitterly disappointed to have finished fourth in the 800m.

But she believes the Rome experience will spark an improvement heading into next year's Commonwealth Games and the looming Olympics in 2012.

"It has been a very hard year but I have learned a lot," she said at the launch of the British Gas Pools 4 Schools programme on London's South Bank.

"Rome was my first meet since the Olympics and I went into it in more of a pressure situation.

"I wanted to compare my performances from Beijing because so much has happened in the last year. I have done so much more media, my body has changed and I wanted to compare what I needed to do.

"I got two bronze medals in Rome, which I can't complain about although I would have liked to have done more, especially in the 800m.

"I have learned the type of work I need to do. I am going to put this year down to experience. I am going to make a fresh start after this. "

British head coach Dennis Pursey suggested Adlington's performances in Rome had been affected by the pressure of heading into a major meet as Olympic champion.

But Adlington believes the expectations on her shoulders as the golden girl of British swimming are unrealistic - not least because the team returned having enjoyed their best world championships ever.

Gemma Spofforth and Liam Tancock both broke world record as they won gold medals.

"Everyone expects me to get in and swim a world record every time," she said.

"After the trials in March everyone kept saying 'what a shame' because Jo (Jackson) got the world record (in the 800m) - but I had just done a two-second personal best.

"Everybody expects you to win and get a world record, which is not right. Even Michael Phelps got a silver medal out there. It doesn't happen in sport. No-one wins every time."

Adlington was lending her support to a scheme based around a mobile 12x6ft mobile swimming pool, which will move around the country and bring swimming facilities to children in under-privileged areas.

The project aims to teach 10,000 children to swim in the next 12 months and is backed by British Gas as part of their £15million investment in British Swimming.

London Mayor Boris Johnson is hoping to bring more of the mobile swimming pools to the capital - and urged the city bankers to throw their money behind the scheme.

"I am sure we were all very pleased this morning to see the news of the recovery of the financial services industry and it is good news - I speak as one who has always defended London's financial services industry," said Johnson.

"If there are any bankers who are in possession of multi-million pound bonuses this August, then what finer way of palliating any guilt you may have than to donate that bonus to our programme to roll out mobile swimming pools across London."