100 Team GB contenders for London 2012: Jenny Meadows

Athletics (800m)

Born: 17/04/81

Career highlights

A late bloomer, Meadows has gone from never winning a medal - even at junior level - to enjoying a podium finish at four consecutive major championships.

Her incredible leap into world class is the result of a new mental approach; UK Athletics Performance Director Charles van Commenee has said of her: "She is an athlete who has proved that you can take part a number of times and be basically invisible, then make a decision that those days are over."

Other career

Meadows failed to make the World Championship final in Daegu, which she described as "a blip". The first major outdoor event in which she competed individually was the 2007 World Championships, when she was a semi-finalist.

Meadows is preparing for London 2012 by sleeping inside an oxygen tent that simulates the effects of being 3000m above sea level.

Personal

Meadows joined her local athletics club Wigan Harriers on her eighth birthday - the earliest you could become an official member. Her dad Keith died in 2008, and she took to wearing his wedding ring on the wedding finger of her right hand.