It has been quite a journey for Zuzana Hejnova and Pavel Maslak since the last Olympic Games in London.
And now the two leading track athletes from the Czech Republic head to Rio having put the finishing touches to their preparations with good runs in Cheb on Tuesday, securing important speed tests before the main show which starts on Friday next week.
Hejnova, who has hardly competed this summer because of an Achilles tendon injury, is now back in full flow and recorded a time of 39.44 over 300m hurdles as she looks to upgrade in style from the 400m hurdles bronze medal she won at the previous Games in London.
That was the start of an incredible period of domination for Hejnova, who proved her brilliance last summer when she came back from missing the key events of 2014 to retain her world title in Beijing having won in Moscow in 2013.
She is such a star performer when it comes to the championships and while she has not run over the 400m hurdles since May, with her 55.69 in Ostrava, that will be no indication for her rivals.
They will know that once she hits her stride, which she has now shown with this performance in Cheb where importantly she negotiated the barriers once again this year, and her 24.22 in Tabor last week, she can be unstoppable.
Maslak clocked a 32.51 over 300m in Cheb as he looks to become the first European man to win a 400m Olympic medal since Great Britain’s Roger Black took silver in Atlanta in 1996.
In London Maslak was only 21 and the European champion after his glory a few weeks before in Helsinki and in the heats he broke the national record with 44.91, a time he has since lowered to 44.79.
He failed to make the final but like his teammate Hejnova, he has a measure of such consistency since. He has four 400m indoor titles to his name - winning and successfully defending both the world and European crowns - and was second in Amsterdam last month at the European Athletics Championships.
It could be an Olympics to remember for both of them.