Cheam’s Katie Dean reckons she has had a taste of things to come after narrowly missing out on a surprise bronze medal at the Judo World Cup event in Birmingham on Saturday.

The 18-year-old lost out by the smallest of margins in her medal contest to finish fifth as she made her senior GB international debut at the weekend.

The former Cheam High School student, who starts a degree course at the University of Bath this week, has targeted a spot in the Great Britain team for the London Olympics in four years time.

She will have expert tuition from legendary Olympian Neil Adams MBE in the west country as she plots a path for 2012.

And Dean, who lost a third place finish after being warned for not attacking, reckons her experience from the weekend can only stand her in good stead for challenges to come.

“It was the biggest competition I’ve ever done in my life and was a really good experience for me,” she said.

“I was quite surprised to get as far as I did considering it was my first big one. It was disappointing to lose on a warning and it was a strange decision because I was doing all the work.

“Every fight was on the same mat and it was great being in the spotlight. It was like my Olympics.”

Dean will now train full-time alongside her studies as she bids to make the permanent step-up into the senior ranks by claiming a win at November’s Team GB senior trials in Sheffield.

But with the expense of University, she admits it is going to be a tough challenge to ensure she fulfils her potential for a crack at Olympic gold.

“If I want to improve I need to be competing abroad and going on all the overseas training camps to test myself regularly against the best,” she added.

“That can get expensive because I have to fund most of those myself. Hopefully I can find the sponsorship, but in the meantime I think I can still learn a lot at Bath.”