In June 2012, at the UK Championships &amp; Olympic trials, Sharp was a surprise winner of the 800 metres. Olympic qualifying rules stated that a country could send three athletes in an event provided they had achieved the A standard, or one athlete who had the B standard. Sharp only had the B standard, while four other British women had the A standard: an injured Jenny Meadows and three athletes who Sharp had defeated at the Olympic trials. A week after the trials, Sharp won a silver medal at the European Championships in Helsinki with a personal best of 2:00.52, a time that was still outside the A standard. (This would be upgraded to gold the following year, after abnormalities were found in Elena Arzhakova's biological passport. Arzhakova was stripped of both her 2012 European title and 2011 European U23 title.) The selectors decided to select Sharp and leave behind athletes including Meadows and Marilyn Okoro. At the Olympics, she ran 2:01.41 in her heat to qualify for the semi-finals, where she finished seventh in 2:01.78, failing to reach the final.