New women's 400m hurdles world champion Jana Pittman claimed she had more improvement left than any of her rivals and warned them she would be stronger and faster for her tilt at Olympic glory next year.

Pittman said her victory lap in Paris felt surreal and she was genuinely surprised by a large and vocal reception at Sydney airport on Saturday night when she was only expecting her mother to meet her.

Sydneysider Pittman, 20, returned to Australia just over a week after her stunning victory in Paris.

The youngest ever 400m hurdles world champion, Pittman emerged as a genuine world star after she ran a personal best time of 53.22 seconds and came from behind to overhaul Russia's world record holder Yuliya Pechonkina.

"Probably out of the girls in the field I'm probably the one that is going to improve the most over the next year," Pittman said on arrival.

"I'm the youngest and the most inexperienced, which showed up in a couple of my races in Europe this year which probably made people think `Ooh, I don't know if she's going to do this'.

"But we had confidence and I know that in the next year I will get stronger, faster and certainly between my head, I will start becoming more confident."

While adamant she hadn't changed since her victory other than becoming more determined, Pittman acknowledged that life around her had changed.

"It's been pretty different I must admit, just having people calling and the support of everybody is quiet strange and its only just starting to sink in now," Pittman said.

Pittman opted not to contest the final Golden League meet in Brussels, which Pechonkina won in 53.49s.

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