SAMURAI JUDO Club starlet Sarah Biles has had her fine year recognised after being invited to take part in the Olympic test event this month.

The British Judo Association are running a full dress rehearsal competition at the Olympic venue, the Excel Centre in London, with one male and one female category each day.

Biles has been invited to take part in the under-70 kilogram weight category because she has been ranked in the top four all season.

“This will be a fantastic experience for Sarah,” said coach Andrew Haffner. “She will be able to experience exactly what an Olympic event is like, as well as competing against some of the very best players around.”

The invitation comes at the end of a fantastically successful year for Biles.

She started the year by taking golds at all three of the first senior ranking events of the year, plus the top spots in both of the nominated England selection events and then silvers at the English Under-20 Open and at the Northern Ireland Open.

Since then she has been mainly competing abroad, taking silver at two major events in Belgium, bronze at the Spanish Under-23 Open and most memorably bronze at the World Cup in Lithuania, which earned her a place representing Great Britain at the Junior European Championships, only the second Worcestershire judo player ever to reach that level after Kate Walker.

Last weekend, she returned to competing in Britain once more and took double gold at the Samurai Senior High Grades Open, which earned her enough points to complete her third level black belt, which she cannot claim until next year because at 19 years of age she is still too young.

Biles will become only the second Worcestershire female – again behind Walker – to ever reach that competitive grade.

She is also one of five Samurai officials who have been chosen to officiate at the actual Olympics next summer, along with Ben, Stefan and Sarah Newbury and Archi Shrimpton, while Malcolm Limrick is also on the reserve list.

This is the largest number from any single club in the country and a larger number than most areas or home countries.

Chairman Sarah Newbury is rated the top British competition organizer with her son Ben second and brother Stefan, Haffner and Limrick are also in the top ten.

In addition, the club has the strongest group of junior referees in Britain and the largest group of qualified senior referees of any club in the country.