Top performance kick starts Olympic ambitions

Teenage Taekwondo sensation Jasmine Klumpp moved one step closer to her dream of Olympic qualification at the weekend when Taekwondo Australia announced it was likely to use athletes from the competitive 47-57kg weight division — the class she fights in—at the London 2012 games.

The announcement capped off a promising weekend for Klumpp, who turned heads during a fight at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra.

Despite being narrowly defeated in her fight against 26-year-old Victorian Caroline Martin, Klumpp, 18, took it up to her vastly more experienced opponent at the crucial Olympic selection tournament to lose by just one point.

Klumpp said the performance put her in a group of three fighters vying for two female Olympic positions in the Australian team.

She also said that it had been a relief to have her weight division, known for its high level of international competition, as the most likely area to draw Olympic team members from.

‘‘A lot of it comes down to chance whether Taekwondo Australia are going to select your division,’’ Klumpp said.

‘‘It was a relief to know at least that if you’re putting in all this training, you’ve got a much greater chance of being selected.

‘‘I feel that it’s taken a lot of doubt out of my mind as well as to whether we can do this—it’s changed everything, I’m more determined to keep training.’’

The 2010Myles Junior Sports Star of the Year finalist now faces a nervous four-month stretch of competition that will decide her fate ahead of the 2012 Games.

Klumpp made her Olympic intentions clear when she won gold at the 2011 Commonwealth Taekwondo Championships in Chennai, India, and remains the only Australian fighter in her weight division to have won an international medal this year.