Celeste Mucci relishing nervous energy as she eyes Tokyo Olympic Games

But the nerves in her stomach tell her it's not - and one of Australian athletics' rising stars is relishing the chance to chase an Olympic Games dream.

The 20-year-old is in Canberra this weekend for the Athletics ACT championships at the AIS, having finished second in the 100 metre sprint final with a time of 11.64 seconds behind Bree Masters on Saturday night.

Now she will set her sights on the 100m hurdles on Sunday as she looks to continue the rise which was fast-tracked when Mucci emerged as a star of the future at last year's national championships.

Mucci turned heads when she claimed gold in the hurdles and heptathlon last year but now the Victorian product has zoned in on the 100m hurdles and the relay event on the road to Tokyo.

"It's my first time actually trying to qualify for the Olympics," Mucci said.

"I'll take it like every other year, I've got a qualifier to get and we'll aim for that and take it as we go.

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"It's definitely going to be an exciting year, I'm definitely a bit more nervous but I think that's a good thing to be honest.

"We've moved away from the heptathlon for a year to focus on the 100m hurdles and the relay squad. I've got my eye on those two definitely leading up to Tokyo."

Mucci is the top-seeded athlete ahead of the 100m hurdles with Queanbeyan's Andrea Thompson also in the hunt.

Meanwhile it was Canberra's Lauren Boden reaffirming her status as the nation's premier 400m hurdler with a dominant win on her home track in 55.89s.

It kicked off a strong start to the weekend for Canberra's athletes with young gun Keely Small finishing second in the 800m behind Queensland's Brittany Kaan.

Queanbeyan's Thompson finished second in long jump with 6.44m behind one-time Olympian Brooke Stratton (6.67m).

Among those names sit a handful of Olympic hopefuls in a field of 802 entries for the ACT championships as athletes look to cash in on a brand new blue Mondo track after the AIS got a $2 million facelift.

"I found it pretty quick actually, I quite like it. It's not too hard, which I like, and I seemed to run pretty well on it. I think I'll be coming back to Canberra a few more times, definitely, Mucci said.

"I wanted to come to Canberra because I knew there would be a lot of people here, so I would be able to get some runs in my legs. I was good enough to get three so I'm pretty happy with that.

"I opened in Canberra last year as well. It's good to open here and then hit all the track classics that have hurdles in them leading up to nationals.

"It'll be a busy period in February and March, we'll see how we go."

Victorian speedster Jack Hale claimed first place in the men's 100m sprint, with his time of 10.14s nudging him ahead of Queensland's Jake Doran (10.33s).