The Latvian might be only 20 but 2012 was a brilliant year.

Ikauniece won bronze in the heptathlon at the European Athletics Championships in Helsinki with 6335 points before increasing her personal best to a national record of 6414 as she finished ninth at the Olympic Games in London.

Now Ikauniece, who in 2011 also won bronze at the European Athletics Junior Championships, is preparing for a big year by basing herself at a training in Clermont, Florida, close to the Kennedy Space Centre.

And one of her stops will be in Göteborg in March for the pentathlon at the European Athletics Indoor Championships.

She is training at the USA's National Training Camp, where sprinters Tyson Gay and Veronica Campbell-Brown are based, and she is there to put down the foundation for the next part of her career with her coach Andis Austrups.

Speaking to MunDeportes, she said: "This is my first time in a training camp in USA. I like the weather here and the track and field complex is very good. It's great to train together with all the superstars. I can improve. I'm just 20 years old. I'm getting stronger every day."

A points total of 6700 is one of the targets that Austrups has put down for her and if she achieves that, it will take her to a new level.
The IAAF World Championships in Moscow in August is the stage where she could really make her name in the heptathlon.

But had she achieved 6700 points in 2012 she would have been fourth on the European lists for last summer - Britain's Jessica Ennis topped it after winning gold at the Olympics with 6955 - but her future looks bright.

And she is going about it the right way.

As Ennis proved, it is all about that progression each season.

Her first heptathlon in 2001, when she was just 15, saw Ennis record 4801 points and since then her scores each year have ended with best of 5116, 5542, 5910, 6287, 6469, 6731, 6823, 6790 and then finally last summer her glorious 6955.

When Ikauniece won silver at the World Youth Championships in Brixen, Italy, in 2009, she did so with 5647 points and since then her Championship scores have been 5618, 6063, 6335 and 6414 points.

Reaching 6700 so quickly might be a big task - but there is nothing like a challenge.

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