But even at the age of 23, Bebington was heading for the heights - and not just because she was on the brink of getting her pilot’s licence.

Two years out from the Beijing Olympics, in her first full international season, she and her then partner in the double sculls, Annie Vernon, had put together a highly promising sequence of races in the World Cup events.

After winning their opening World Cup race in Munich, they slipped to fifth in their next race, eight seconds adrift of New Zealand’s world and Olympic champions Georgina and Caroline Evers-Swindell, who were opening their World Cup campaign.

However in the third World Cup, at Lucerne, the young British pair had reduced that gap to less than half a second, a morale-boosting performance just a month ahead of the World Championships at the newly completed Eton Dorney course on which, six years later, racing in the London 2012 Olympics would take place.

"My personal ambition is the usual cliché - to win an Olympic gold medal," Bebington said at the time. "Annie and I will be 29 in 2012, which will be exactly the right age. Once you get to 30, people start wondering when you are going to retire."

The usual cliché turned into an uncommonly glorious triumph in London, although it was not with Vernon, but Katherine Grainger - who has already made a comeback to the sport after taking a two-year break and is targeting another medal quest at the Rio 2016 Games.

As for the bit about retiring - well, Bebington/Watkins got that a bit wrong. Instead, people were wondering when she was going to return.

And this was despite the fact that Watkins has given birth to two children since London 2012 - William, who arrived in September 2013, and Richard, who was born in February - and that she will be 33 by the time of the Rio Games.

As far as the age thing goes, I guess she could tell herself she was still a relative youngster compared with Grainger, who will be 40 by the time the next Olympics take place.

Her Twitter account offers a few clues as to how her thinking was going in the last few months.

In January she responded to the launch of a British Rowing promotional video by tweeting: "Makes me want to get back in a boat, if only I could fit in my kit #wearebritishrowing #37weekspregnant.."

A post on April 2 pictured a room with sleeping children and a piece of exercise equipment, with the message: "Result!!! Both babies asleep, time to remember how to work this thing #postbabyrehab.."

And then, on August 11, this: "It’s official…I’m back in training aiming for #Rio2016. Going to be a tough and crazy year but so excited #nolimits"

No limits? That’s bold. Grainger has certainly not found that to be the case this season in her new double sculls partnership with Vicky Thornley.

Although Grainger and Thornley took bronze at the European Championships in Poznan, they have struggled to make the podium in subsequent World Cup races, failing to reach the final in Lucerne last month in the final World Cup contest before the World Championships in Aiguebelette, France from August 30 to September 6.

But Watkins certainly appears not to have been put off by her former partner’s experience.

"I know some people will think this is rather far-fetched and ridiculous to come back after three years out and two children and, within a year, get into the Olympic team," she said. "For all of us it will be a matter of working it out step by step."

"No-one has done this before so it will be experimental and ground breaking. I don’t know where to set my expectations yet but I‘m very excited about finding out what’s possible."

She added: "I love something far-fetched. It’s almost the ridiculousness sucking me in."

Sir David Tanner, GB Rowing Team performance director, has been cautious but optimistic in his comments: "We are delighted that someone of Anna’s talent and status is returning to the sport. That can only be a good thing for the sport. We operate an open policy and Anna will be aware of all the steps that will need to be taken in the coming months."

Those steps will include a series of trials and testing through the Autumn and early winter followed in March of next year by the GB Rowing Team senior team trials.

One imagines Watkins - who missed a medal by one place at the 2006 World Championships but won double sculls bronze with Elise Laverick at the Beijing Olympics - will be setting about the work in the same way she and Vernon put themselves to the task of making up that eight-second margin on the Kiwi world and Olympic champions.

Quite simply, they decided to make up a second a day on each of their main training sessions. The margin of defeat in Lucerne was reduced to just 0.41 seconds.

"One of the things we are wanting to do as a crew is to challenge preconceptions," Bebington said at the time. "You are not supposed to be able to make up eight seconds in three weeks, but we think a lot of the reason why people don't improve as fast as possible is that they don't think it is possible."

Evidence there aplenty of a champion mentality.

Back in 2006, Bebington - who had already been out on several solo flights in a Cessna 152 - recalled the time at Cambridge when she told all her friends to wait in the College Gardens so they could wave as she flew past. "I was waving like mad when I went over. I was completely happy up there. When I got back I was asking them, 'Did you see me? Did you see me?' But they'd all forgotten."

She told the story with a laugh. But it seemed clear even then that this young woman's exploits - on water, rather than in the air - would soon be attracting the proper attention.

"I always considered I was going to make my way in the world academically," she said. "It is something that has been with me ever since I was tiny. I have always wanted to do something out of the ordinary."

That ambition clearly hasn’t changed.