Modern pentathlete Kate French admits she will be making sure to tap into the experiences of fellow Rio teammate Samantha Murray as she gears up to make her Olympic Games debut in less than two months time.

French was named as one of a quartet of Team GB modern pentathletes heading to Brazil for the 2016 Olympic Games – alongside Murray and male athletes Joe Choong and James Cooke.

Of those four, only London 2012 silver medallist Murray has previous Olympic experience, with French keen to gain some useful insights ahead of the women’s competition kicking off in Rio on August 18.

The 25-year-old is not without her own taste of international success though having won mixed team and women’s team silver at the 2014 World Championships and team gold at last year’s European Championships in Bath.

Her eighth place finish in the individual competition at the latter also helped earn her ticket on the plane to Rio – although it was only on Wednesday that her place on the plane with Team GB was rubberstamped.

“It feels amazing to be going to my first Olympics. I am so excited. It’s a childhood dream,” she said.

“From a very young age I wanted to go to an Olympic Games. In 2012, I got a bit of a feel for what an Olympics is like and so I worked hard to make sure I was going to get to one myself.

“I’ve worked very hard to get here and it’s been a long journey. I definitively couldn’t relax even though I got the mark last year at the Europeans because the girls team is very strong. It gave me that focus to keep working hard.

“To have Sam alongside me, after all her experiences in London, was great. I am sure she will help me along the journey and I hope to learn from her.

“We have got a training camp starting in France, which will be huge because it’s all at altitude and that will help us get fitter and then we have our final chance to compete in the European Championships. That will be really good to see where we are and show how the training camp has helped our preparation.

“At the moment, I just want to have good training block and be as fit as I can be before I get to Rio and then go out and hit my targets and see what happens from there. Getting a medal would be amazing, but as long as I hit my targets then that’s all that matters.”

Originally from Gravesend, French now lives in Bath where she trains at the Pentathlon GB High Performance Centre and also studies for a degree in sports performance at the University of Bath.

Over 60 per cent of gold medallists since 1992 have participated in BUCS sport, with 56 members of Team GB at the London 2012 Olympics competing for Great Britain at the World University Games.

And on the eve of her Olympic Games debut, French admits she looks back fondly on her BUCS experiences.

“BUCS was very exciting and I did it for university,” she added. “It’s great because it gets people up for competition, shows them what it’s about and what it’s like to win and compete at a high level.

“I think in the individual I always came second, which was annoying, but in the team event we always did well.

“The more competitions you do, the more you learn about yourself as an athlete and helps to show where you’re strong and weak and where you need to improve.”

British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) is the national governing body for Higher Education (HE) sport in the UK, representing more than 150 institutions. Covering 52 sports, BUCS aids grass roots participation through to supporting aspiring elite athletes en route to Commonwealth or Olympic Games www.bucs.org.uk