Speaking here after arriving in the Olympic Village with his team-mates, the pommel horse specialist (pictured above), who has also won two European silvers and a Commonwealth gold, admitted: "Last night I said goodbye to my followers on Twitter and turned all my notifications off so my phone has gone a bit quiet.

"I decided to do it just to keep my eye on the prize.

"Obviously we want to build a reputation and go into this as a squad to show the public who we are.

"This could affect our whole lives.

"This Olympic Games, depending on what happens, we could make a living out of it.

"I really want to put everything I can into it and if that means not tweeting and staying off Facebook then I'll do that."

Louis Smith won bronze at Beijing 2008

Asked if he could feel the excitement building before the Games, Smith replied: "I can definitely feel it building up but I wouldn't say it's excitement.

"Like all GB athletes there is some anxiety involved – we're all anxious to get started.

"But we've had a fantastic few weeks as a team.

"The team looks fantastic.

"We feel ready.

"We're just trying to relax but there's no running away from how big it is in our home competition.

"We just have to focus on what we do best and try to enjoy it.

"Hopefully the crowd will get behind us.

"I think we've felt the pressure ever since the Games were announced.

"Ever since we won a medal in Beijing it's been building.

"People are always asking us if we're going to win gold.

"We've done fantastically well in the past so there is always that expectation, but for any GB athlete it is more this time, and it's all about finding a way of dealing with that.

"I'm quite a joker in the team.

"I crack a few jokes.

"I keep the mood mellow and try to have a bit of fun.

"I think that helps."

Smith's status as joker was confirmed shortly afterwards when his 19-year-old fellow gymnast Sam Oldham, who gave up a possible career as a footballer, was asked where he might be if he had stayed with the game.

Sam Oldham chose gymnastics over football

"In the GB Olympic team!" said Smith, who revealed that he had wasted no time in playing a prank on another team-mate, Kristian Thomas, when they had moved into their Village accommodation.

"I got Kristian last night," Smith said.

"We've got air conditioning units in the room and Kristian was asking me how it worked, so I said 'I'll sort it out for you'.

"There's a cord that goes out the window because it blows hot air out.

"So I took that, put it on, left the cord in the corner of his room and after about two hours he's sweating, going 'Why is it so hot in here?' and I was like 'Oh, I don't know...'

"But I couldn't let him go to sleep like it so I sorted it out."

Oldham was on Notts County's books as a young teenager and received offers from Nottingham Forest and Derby County.

His father, Bob, was a winger at Forest during the 1980s.

"I played football at quite a high level," Oldham said.

"It runs in the family, my dad was a footballer, my granddad was a footballer.

"My dad was at Forest during the Brian Clough years and he almost broke through to the first team but he got an injury.

"He didn't push me towards football, but I think he liked the idea of my following in his footsteps.

"But I was already putting so many hours into gymnastics, and I had already appeared in junior internationals when I had to make the choice.

"It's a difficult thing to become a footballer – a lot of young players want to become professionals.

"But not a lot of people in the world can do what we do in gymnastics.

"Now for me the decision has paid off – I've made the Olympic team and I'm really still in shock."

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