As a prominent member of British cycling's talented younger generation, Lizzie Armitstead might be expected to have eyes only for the future. In the short term, she has three chances of gold medals, tomorrow, Friday and Sunday, in the world track cycling championships in Poland. For the rest of this year, there will be her road racing career to think about, while 2012 and London are inevitably looming large in her mind.

However, the 20-year-old from Otley, Yorkshire, is well aware of the wheeltracks she is following. Not long after she first got on her bike in anger, Armitstead's grandmother gave her an old newspaper cutting about the late, great Beryl Burton, a prolific medallist at world and national championships in a 25-year career. "You look at some of her times on the equipment she was riding and you think oof! She's definitely someone who isn't recognised as much as she should have been for what she did."

There seems little chance of Armitstead lapsing into obscurity, such has been her rise in the last six months. In September last year she rode in her first senior world road race championship in support of the eventual gold medallist, Nicole Cooke. That was followed by a barnstorming track World Cup in Manchester, where she managed a clean sweep of gold medals in all her three events: team pursuit, points and scratch race. Her successful winter ended at the Copenhagen World Cup with golds in the scratch and team pursuit.

She has every reason to be optimistic about the next few days, but can't quite bring herself to declare she wants three gold medals. "It's difficult not to let your dreams run away with you. I'm capable of achieving gold in all three, but the scratch and points are a bit of a lottery and I'm going to be marked. To achieve all three you would need a lot of ­dominance in each event. You have to put the World Cup into perspective: Manchester wasn't ­anything near world championship level."

The yardstick within the Great Britain track cycling team could hardly be higher after last year's dominance at the world's (nine of 18 possible golds) and Olympics (seven of 10 golds). For "medal or nothing", the original motto post-Athens, the feeling is that gold is all that counts. "Within this programme, it's now the done thing to win a gold medal," says Armitstead. "Subconsciously if I don't podium in all three I'll be disappointed, but I don't want to say outright I want to do that."

She came to cycling relatively late, at 16, when British Cycling's Talent Team visited her school. "I had a friend who was a bit naughty and she got me on the playing field [cycling] to miss lessons. Some of the lads taunted me into racing. I didn't even own a bike, it was just one from the Talent Team." Before, she had been a runner, with parents who raced with the Otley Athletic Club.

"There's no ceiling with Lizzie," says the women's endurance coach, Dan Hunt. "She's multi-talented, technically skilled, tactically astute, she has a big engine and she learns quickly. There is not an event out there she cannot perform well in. She's already establishing herself as a good road rider on the pro scene and by London she could be looking at the possibility of road and track medals." That, however, may depend on whether or not there are more places for women cyclists at the Games.

Currently, a team is only permitted to take three women track riders for four track events. A further event may be added this summer, but it is unclear whether numbers will be increased. Given that the three prime candidates for the British slots on the track will be Victoria Pendleton, Rebecca Romero and Wendy Houvenaghel, who is aiming for gold in the individual pursuit today, Armitstead has her eyes on a place in the road team.

"The points is an Olympic event but it's a lottery, so unless I was completely dominant my chances of selection would be at risk. The road isn't an easy option, but it's a more open option. I'm lucky the points and road are in the Games, because they are my favourite events, but the allocation of riders could prevent me doing what I want to. I can't understand why it's allowed to happen."

And so, while the parallels between Armitstead and Burton are appealing, the differences matter more. Burton never had the chance to go to an Olympic Games, as her best years were over by 1984 when women cyclists were allowed in.

And while her illustrious predecessor was a supreme time triallist and occasional bunched racer, Armitstead lives for mass-start events: road racing, and the points and scratch on the track. "It's why I enjoy bike racing. It's not going round the bottom of the track in circles. I get excited racing other people, using my head. Just watching a bunched race is like watching a story unfold."