Ashley McKenzie

Willesden judoka Ashley McKenzie has been driven by the incentive of Olympic glory since he was 16 – now the prize is almost within reach.

McKenzie is the clear favourite to represent Great Britain in the under-60kg category at London 2012 and could effectively seal his place with strong performances during the next few weeks.

The Paris Grand Slam, which gets under way on Saturday, and the Grand Prix in Dusseldorf a fortnight later, carry precious ranking points that can significantly increase the 22-year-old’s prospects of claiming an Olympic medal in his home city.

“These two are the main ones for me – you need points from those events if you want to get a good draw in the Olympics,” McKenzie told the Times.

“I’m going to the gym more, and doing more individual stuff with my technical coach, so I just have to keep training hard and hopefully then I’ll be looking forward to the Games.

“Basically when I was 16 and competing at the Youth Olympics it had just been announced that the Games would be in London and that did me the world of good.

“I thought I might have a chance, even though 2012 seemed a long way off at the time, and from then on I was trying harder to get into it. Now it seems like a dream come true.”

The path to London 2012 has not always seemed as straightforward for McKenzie, who grew up in Queen’s Park, and first became interested in judo at the age of 11.

He initially trained at Moberly Sports Centre, Kilburn, before the higher standard of competition available at Willesden Judo Club persuaded him to switch there in 2002.

But McKenzie, who was later diagnosed with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), struggled at school and was eventually excluded altogether.

“One day on the street a guy tried to take my Pokemon cards,” McKenzie recalled. “I thought I was a good little scrapper but he just threw me and I wondered ‘what did he do to me?’

“So I went on the internet and found out about judo. It turned out to be something I was good at and something that was good for me and a year down the line I was national champion.

“I had this situation where I was doing well at judo, rubbish at school, but Leigh Davies, the coach at Willesden, played a big part in helping me to do what I wanted to do.”

Gradually, McKenzie’s career began to take off and, despite disciplinary issues that saw him serve a six-month ban, he claimed three senior British Open gold medals in a row.

He also became European under-23 champion and, for the last few years, has been a member of the GB squad that trains full-time at the British Judo Performance Centre in Dartford, rising to 22 in the world rankings.

Now that Olympic spot is his to lose, especially with James Miller – the Willesden player’s main domestic rival – not competing in Paris.

“I’ve never really had anything where people have been telling me ‘well done’,” McKenzie added. “For those who thought I was a bad kid, I feel I’ll have proved myself by getting to the Olympics.

“If I didn’t have judo, what else would I have? This sport is basically a lifesaver – it’s changed a lot of lives and I’m grateful that one of those is mine.”