A year after breaking the Luxembourg national record for the 800 metres, 24-year old Charline Mathias finds herself bound for Rio for her first taste of the Olympic Games.

Mathias ran a time of 2:01.30 in Bellinzona in Italy in July 2015, exactly a month after she had set a previous national best when winning gold at the inaugural European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Screenshot of the official video capturing Charline Mathias moments after winning the women’s 800m at the Baku 2015 European Games

She is also the gold medal holder in the same discipline at the Games of the Small States of Europe, which were held in Reykjavík, Iceland, in June 2015.

Her national record was just 6/100ths of a second faster than the time she ran at the World Championships at the Olympic Stadium in Beijing, where she finished 25th overall after failing to qualify out of her first round heat.

Charline Mathias (with her teammate, Charles Grethen) in an official portrait provided by the Luxembourg Olympic and Sports Committee (COSL)

Running for CSL and affiliated to Lille Métropole Athlétisme, Mathias has been competing at international level since she was 17 and keeps improving not only her times (she also holds national records indoors for the 400 and 1500 metres) but also her race smarts, as the victory in a large field in the final in Baku showed.