The expression on Erin Wallace’s face when she crossed the line and realised she’d not only run the fastest 800m of her life but had also dipped under the Olympic qualifying mark spoke a thousand words.

Those two minutes – or 1 minute 59.20 seconds to be precise – have now set up the coming weeks to be the most significant of the Glaswegian’s career.

This weekend, Wallace will make her debut at a senior outdoor major championship having been included in GB’s squad for the European Athletics Championships, which begin today in Rome.

This European Championships appearance, coupled with this month’s British Championships, which double as the Olympic trials, could go a long way to defining not only Wallace’s season, but her entire career.

It’s quite a thought realising the significance of the coming weeks but the 24-year-old is in exactly the position she’d planned for at this stage of her athletics career.

“I always hoped I’d be fighting for an Olympic spot by this point in my career,” the Giffnock North athlete says.

“In 2021, I wasn’t too far off qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics and at that point, I was on an upwards trajectory and expected a smooth path but that’s not how sport works.

“I missed the 2022 season through injury and last season I was up and down but now, things seem to have clicked.”

Wallace has long been identified as an athlete with plenty of potential; she is an under-18 and under-23 European medallist, as well as a Commonwealth Youth Games 1500m champion.

However, her career path has been far from conventional; a detour into triathlon highlighted her versatility – she represented Team Scotland at the 2018 Commonwealth Games as a triathlete – but having returned to track and field and settled on the 800m as her favoured distance, Wallace has established herself as one of the country’s best middle-distance runners.

She has, however, chosen one of the most competitive distances, in a GB context at least, in which to try for Olympic selection.

With Olympic medallist Keely Hodgkinson and fellow Scot Jemma Reekie leading the charge, plus several other British women running world-class 800m times, Wallace knows that securing a ticket to Paris for this summer’s Olympic Games will be no mean feat.

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However, Wallace has done half the job already by securing the Olympic qualification time in her third-place finish at the BMC Grand Prix in Manchester last month and this qualification time means that now, she knows a top-two finish at the British Championships later this month would guarantee her Olympic debut.

With such stiff competition within the event, this is far from guaranteed but Wallace admits the knowledge that Olympic selection is within her grasp is a thrilling prospect.

“Before I’d run the Olympic time, I was thinking that it was just ridiculously hard to make the team for Paris but now having run the Olympic qualifying time, it takes pressure off and at the trials, anything can happen so who knows who’ll make it to the Olympics,” she says.

“Making it to Paris is definitely on my radar but all my hopes and dreams aren’t pinned on it. I’ll do everything I can to be there, though, and I know I need to be firing on all cylinders at the British Champs because it’s just so stacked.”

Wallace’s improvement over the past year has been down, in large part, to becoming a full-time athlete.

Having completed her university degree in her home city of Glasgow last year, Wallace relocated to Manchester to join the training group led by esteemed coaches Trevor Painter and Olympian, Jenny Meadows, with Wallace now boasting world number 1 Hodgkinson as a training partner.

And so, with a solid winter behind her, Wallace has been pleasantly surprised at the consistent performances she’s been able to churn out, particularly as a relatively inconsistent few years had sown seeds of doubt that she would ever be able to produce her very best when it really mattered.

“This winter, I barely missed any days of training which, for me, is mad because previously, I missed loads of training because of niggles and injuries. But this winter, I was able to string a block of good training together and that means I’m so much stronger and in a much better place to run well,” she says.

“In the past, my performances had been up and down and I’d got into a mindset where I knew I could run fast but thought it maybe just wasn’t going to happen for me in races. So when I got the Olympic qualifier, I was very relieved that I’d performed when it mattered.”

Securing Olympic selection may be Wallace’s primary goal for the coming weeks but over the next few days, her focus will be solely on the European Championships, in which she will compete alongside four of her fellow Scots; Eilish McColgan and Megan Keith in the 10,000m and Neil Gourley and Jemma Reekie in the 1500m.

Wallace admits making it into this team has been a welcome confidence boost and while she will be up against Hodgkinson, who is favourite to take 800m gold, Wallace’s form is allowing her to set her sights high for the coming days.

“I feel so validated to have made this team – it’s so good to see the work pay off,” she says.

“I’m highly-ranked but I want to just take each round as it comes in Rome. Making the final would be great, though.”