AS a successful model who has appeared in the final of the Miss Earth beauty pageant, Consett’s Jade Slavin knows all about competing against female rivals for a leading prize. It is only in her other guise, however, where she kicks them in the head.

With her modelling career currently on the back burner, the 22-year-old is making heads turn in the Olympic sport of taekwondo. Last year, she claimed her fourth national title as well as a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games, and next month she will make her senior World Championship debut in Russia after being selected as Britain’s representative in the under-73kg weight category.

As a member of the GB performance squad based in Manchester, she is in line to make her Olympic debut in Rio next summer, with Jade Jones’ gold medal at London 2012 having raised both taekwondo’s profile and the standing of the sport as a source of future medals.

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She intends to return to modelling in the future, but for now, it is the taekwondo mat rather than the catwalk that is the source of her focus. And perhaps unsurprisingly, the two arenas do not really mix.

“People always think it’s funny that I do both,” said Slavin, whose 6ft 3in frame enables her to tower over the majority of her opponents. “There was a time in the past where I would train during the day and then maybe go on a modelling job on the night, but I need to focus on my sport now so that’s finished.

“It’s a time thing really. People always say, ‘Are you not worried about getting a black eye or something like that’, but I’ve had so many injuries down the years that I just don’t think about them anymore.

“I’ve broken loads of my bones. I’ve broken all my fingers and fractured my toes. I broke my finger during the Commonwealth Games but still won the gold. I’ve certainly never gone into a fight worrying about it affecting the way I look.”

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As a youngster who was keen on a wide range of sports, Slavin excelled at netball, athletics and cross-country during her schooldays, but taekwondo was always her preferred discipline.

She first tried the sport at the Teuk Soo Blackhill Taekwondo Academy at the age of nine, and moved to the highly-respected Chi Taekwondo Academy in Spennymoor when she was 16.

So what made her take up the sport in the first place?

“It was my dad,” she said. “I was with him one day and one of his friends was walking past with all of his taekwondo gear on.

“I asked, ‘What’s he doing?’ And dad said, ‘He does taekwondo – a bit like you see in the Bruce Lee films’. I asked if I could have a go and he said, ‘Well you do everything else – I don’t see why not’.

“I started properly competing and fighting when I was about 13, and loved it straight away. I won my first fight by a technical knockout in Whitley Bay, and that was it, I was hooked.”

She won her first national title in 2008 at the age of 15, and claimed her breakthrough success on the international stage when she won at the Swedish Open four years later, beating the reigning World Junior champion in the final

Last year’s Commonwealth Games success was another notable landmark, with Slavin ending the year in the world’s top 40 after a notable victory in Greece over the current world number one.

“It’s never been about ability with Jade,” said her coach at Chi Taekwondo, Russell Shaw. “From the very first day she walked through the door, it was clear she had something.

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“It’s always been about getting that inner belief into her and making her believe she’s as good as she is. I think that’s happening now.

“She used to get really nervous before her fights, but you can see now that she’s comfortable taking on the very best fighters in the world. She knows she belongs at world level and I really think the sky’s the limit for her. Hopefully, she’ll prove that at the World Championships.”

Slavin heads to a training camp in Cuba later this month, before travelling to the Russian city of Chelyabinsk for the World Championships that begin on May 12.

“The last couple of years have been such a rollercoaster, and to think I’m going to be competing at a World Championships is amazing,” she said. “I can’t wait to get started, and if I can come away with a medal, it should put me in the top ten in the world, which would be massive when it comes to Olympic qualification.

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“The British squad is so strong that even just being selected is an achievement, and it’s up to me to make the most of it.”

Beyond that, all roads lead to Rio, and while the Olympic programme is more condensed than the World Championships, meaning weights are combined and British fighters in different categories have to compete for one place, Slavin’s long-term ambition is to appear on the biggest stage of all.

“I’m still quite young for my weight category, so hopefully I’ll have a chance of competing in the next two Olympics,” she said. “I still can’t really imagine what it would be like to compete in an Olympic Games. It would be an absolutely incredible experience.”