Of late, Caster Semenya has loomed large in the mind of Lynsey Sharp.

No difference, you'd imagine, from her fellow 800 metres competitors, all of whom will be wary of the controversial South African's capacity to destroy their ambitions for gold at the Olympic Games.

Sharp saw her prodigious power at close hand when she faced the, then, little known Semenya at the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games. However, it has been the validity of her ambiguous gender status that has consumed the interest of the 21-year-old Napier University student. The required dissertation to complete her law degree combined both her passions. "It was called 'Inter-sex athletes and the legal implications'," she reveals. "It was hard to make it legal enough."

Adjudged admissible, Sharp will sit her final exam next week and graduate, she hopes, with honours. That last remaining paper should have been on Monday. Instead she will be running at the Olympic Stadium, the annual BUCS student championships doubling up as the official test event. Strings have been attached. "I've had to sign a declaration that I won't talk to anyone," she confides. Another early insight into legalise.

Four years of hitting the law books has left the Edinburgh-born prospect with an informed insight into the case which has consumed the sport in recent weeks. At next month's UK Athletics trials, the name of Dwain Chambers will join hers on the entry list, just another face, another hopeful, with the Olympics on his mind.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport's ruling that the UK can no longer impose a life ban from the Games upon those who have served drug bans has earned guarded condemnation and praise in equal measure. "I don't agree with drug cheats being allowed back in the sport," states Sharp, unambiguously. "Some people are for Dwain and some are against it, like Paula Radcliffe. I'd agree with her."

That personal verdict, she confesses, comes from the heart. As a would-be lawyer, her opinion is over-turned. The judges of CAS, she offers, had no option but to come down against the British Olympic Association. "The rest of the world has taken a different stance from the UK," she declares. "And when LeShawn Merritt got away with it, in a legal sense, what could they do? They've had to agree with the rest of the world. It's a precedent."

Such intrigue and intricacies are what drew her to the law in the first place. Injury-plagued for much of her late teens, going to university was a welcome distraction from the uncertainties over her athletics career. Spending prolonged periods on the sideline also made it easier to keep up with the work – until last year, when she affirmed herself among the country's best middle-distance runners.

"This is the first time I've struggled," she admits. "At Christmas I said to my mum that maybe I should take half a year out. But I'm glad I've done it. The hardest part was finishing my dissertation and it was such a relief when I handed that in before I went out to train in Portugal."

Student days almost over, Sharp can now focus fully on earning an invite back to Stratford in July. It is a realistic prospect.

Next month's trials are the initial target. Even with uncertainty over the fitness of Jenny Meadows, there is ample depth at her preferred distance. Plus there is the small matter of earning the qualifying time for London. She has passed tougher tests. 12 months ago, Sharp went to the annual meeting in Loughborough with no real idea of her fitness or form. "I don't know how I didn't feel the pressure," Sharp recounts. "The whole of UK Athletics was there. It was a huge thing. And I went out and won it. It felt so good."

As she walked back to the warm-up area, she felt eyes upon her. "They didn't know what to say. It was like: 'we totally weren't expecting that.' It was really strange. But I liked the feeling of surprising people." Keen to prosecute her case for selection, there will be no resting until it has been made beyond reasonable doubt.