THIS weekend, Jade Slavin will compete at the World Taekwondo Grand Prix in front of a capacity crowd at London’s Copper Box Arena, one of the venues for the 2012 Olympics.

A British team featuring two-time Olympic champion Jade Jones will be afforded celebrity status as they take on the world’s best fighters, with GB Taekwondo having identified the competition as a key staging point on the road to Tokyo 2020.

Backed by almost £10m of UK Sport funding for the four-year cycle leading up to Tokyo, the British taekwondo federation are able to support Slavin in state-of-the-art facilities in Manchester. Those facilities, it is safe to say, are somewhat different to what the 24-year-old first experienced when she travelled from her native Consett to link up with the GB squad.

“Back then, we were pretty much training in an abandoned warehouse next to Asda,” said Slavin, who took up her sport at Tuek Soo Blackhill Taekwondo Academy at the age of nine before moving to the respected Chi Taekwondo Academy in Spennymoor when she was 16. “You had the best fighters in the country joining up to train, but the facilities weren’t even as good as you’d get at most local clubs.

“It was basically a gym in a room at the back of the Asda. But then after I’d been going down for a year or so, they built the new national centre and it’s incredible. It’s a state-of-the-art place, and you almost have to pinch yourself when you turn up to train.

“The gym is incredible, and there’s offices and physios and everything like that on site. You feel like you’re being really valued as an athlete and everyone is there to make sure you can be the best you can be. It’s a massive change from how it used to be.”

The physical alterations at the headquarters of GB Taekwondo reflect the radical changes in the sport’s profile and status over the last few years. No longer a fringe martial art, taekwondo has entered the sporting mainstream, largely as a result of Team GB’s successes at the last two Olympics.

Jones’ two gold medals have been a massive part of that, but there is a real depth to the British squad now, with Lutalo Muhammad and Bianca Walkden also having won medals in Rio.

Whereas in the past, taekwondo might have been regarded as a murky world of random kicks and impenetrable leg sweeps, Olympic exposure means people now have a much greater understanding of what they are watching. Slavin, a former model, freely admits her friends were gobsmacked when she opted to take up the sport. Now, the reaction might be slightly different.

“The attitude to the sport has completely altered,” she said. “When I first started, nobody really knew what taekwondo was, and if they did, they probably thought it was something that wasn’t for girls.

“That’s been the biggest change. When we compete in London at the weekend, there’ll be loads of girls in the crowd who have come along with their parents. That’s brilliant, and hopefully young girls will find it easier to get into the sport now. It’s not seen as something weird any more, and a lot of that is down to Jade (Jones).”

Jones remains taekwondo’s poster girl, with her crossover appeal having been highlighted by her appearance on the reality TV show, The Jump, last winter. The Welsh Olympic champion is one of the best-known female sports stars in the country, but first and foremost, she remains a formidable competitor and Slavin has benefited from training alongside her in the last few months.

While they fight at different weights – Jones is at least ten kilograms lighter than Slavin – they share the same coach, Jinmi Cho, and by sparring with arguably the best fighter in the world, Slavin feels her own performance levels have improved markedly.

“You couldn’t really ask for someone better to train with,” she said. “We’ve always done some stuff together, but this year we’ve had a lot of individual sessions together because Jade has changed her coach.

“It’s great to see how somebody like that trains, and you can pick up little things all the time. Our styles are different because Jade’s a lot lighter than me so she’s quicker on her feet. But I’m trying to incorporate some of that into the way I fight. You see things about the way she moves and balances herself and try to do it yourself.”

The training has paid off, with Slavin’s move into the world’s top 30 in her -73kg weight category having earned her a place on the Grand Prix series. She has established herself as the British number one in her division, but weight classes are combined for the Olympics so when it comes to Tokyo, she will be targeting a place in the +67kg category.

That puts her into competition with Walkden, a bronze medallist from Rio, and while there are still two-and-a-half years of the current cycle to go, it already looks like there is every chance of the pair going head-to-head for a place in Tokyo.

Saturday’s Grand Prix event in London is an early opportunity for them to lock horns in a competitive environment, although they will both have to be at their very best if they are to trade blows.

“We’re on different sides of the draw, so the only way we can meet in is the final,” said Slavin. “That would be pretty exciting.

“Bianca’s a great fighter, and she’s obviously got an Olympic medal to prove that, but if it comes down to a battle between us for a place in Tokyo, I’ll happily take that on. It’ll be a case of ‘May the best girl win’. Literally.

“Hopefully, I’ll show everyone what I can do in London at the weekend, and then I’ve got the French Open in November to finish the year. There’s not really an off-season in taekwondo, but that’ll be the last real competition I do before Christmas.

“Next year, the European Championships will be the big focus, and then in 2019 it’s the World Championships in Manchester. They’ll be massive, because after that, you’re really looking to 2020 and Tokyo.

“Obviously, the dream is to compete at an Olympics. You look around the squad and think, ‘Well, other people have done it, so why can’t I?’ That has to be the attitude, but I know it’s going to take a lot of hard work and training to get there.”