DAMON Sansum was little more than an interested observer the last time British taekwondo went into meltdown over the selection process for the Olympic Games.

Three-and-a-half years ago, he was still in the process of finding his feet in the sport after making the switch from kickboxing. By his own admission, he did not have the results or the experience to merit the place on offer as Great Britain’s sole representative in the men’s -80kg class at London 2012.

Likewise, he didn’t have a clue what was about to unfold when Lutalo Muhammad was picked by the British Taekwondo Control Board ahead of the world number one, Aaron Cook, during a three-hour meeting that duly turned into a three-act play.

Cook appealed, claiming the act was a hostile response to him leaving the national programme to train on his own. The British Olympic Association forced GB Taekwondo to revisit the decision twice. The World Taekwondo Federation accused them of a lack of transparency and bringing the sport into disrepute.

Muhammad held onto his spot, though, and went on to win bronze. Cook, meanwhile, represented the Isle of Man for a while before jumping ship to Moldova following an approach from the billionaire president of their taekwondo federation, Igor Iuzefovici.

Cook will be waiting for Team GB’s representative in Rio this summer under the flag of the former Soviet republic. This time round, it is Scotland’s very own Sansum who is up against Muhammad for the one slot the Londoner confirmed by winning the final of the World Grand Prix in Mexico against Cook, of all people, last month.

Muhammad also defeated Sansum in the last eight of October’s Manchester Grand Prix before taking silver. It is easy to regard him as the man in the box seat, but nothing is certain and nothing will be known until Sansum and Muhammad receive one all-important telephone call sometime in June.

Sansum enjoyed a strong start to 2015, winning silver at the world championships along with gold at the Dutch Open and bronze in the Korean Open, and believes he can progress sufficiently in the next five months to show he is the nation’s best hope of gold in Brazil.

He just wishes the sport, as a whole, could make progress and prevent him from being in such a precarious position. It is, he says, time for a review of the one-country, one-player rule that has made making it to the Olympics such a painful and contentious affair.

“It is unheard of that three of us from the UK are in the top seven or so in the world in the same division,” said Sansum.

“Aaron changed nationality because he knows he is going to the Olympics now. It is not good to change nationality and he probably didn’t want to do it, but it has guaranteed his place.

“A few people have said that it’s a shame Lutalo and I are not at different weights or that taekwondo does not allow more than one person to go. We know the rules, of course, but, in truth, it is a bit c**p.

“It doesn’t apply to other sports. In athletics, for example, there may be four Jamaican sprinters good enough to contest the 100 metres. They are all allowed to be there on the starting line in Rio.

“It’s crazy. Historically, the Koreans were dominant in taekwondo. No-one could beat them. I think the idea came about that it was better to have one person representing each country in each division rather than permit two or three because the Koreans would win every medal.

“That is no longer the case, though. After the last qualification tournament, I think Europe had more slots than Asia. Asia is no longer dominant with the Europeans probably better.

“The rules need to change because it is just not fair.”

They won’t change before this summer, though. Sansum is in direct competition with his training partner at GB Taekwondo’s Manchester base and admits he is about to enter the most crucial phase of his career after enjoying Christmas and New Year back in Elgin.

“I was unable to train much over Christmas as a result of a pulled muscle, but it was nice to come back to Scotland and see family and my little brothers, Theo, Blake and Sebastian,” said the 28-year-old.

“I think it was good to have that before coming back down to enter this training phase. I had a few drinks, did some clay pigeon shooting with the gang and recharged the batteries. It was good preparation for what is going to be the biggest time and the hardest training of my taekwondo career.

“I did well the whole year until the last couple of tournaments while Lutalo got a gold and silver in the last two. From my point of view, it is all to play for in terms of who will go there to represent Great Britain.

“There are four qualifying tournaments over 2016 starting with the Dutch Open in March. It is a head-to-head with Lutalo now and it is all about who performs the best and gets selected.

“There is a lot of pressure and it could have an effect if you focus too much on it, but I have a sports psychologist and we work together on that.

“In the end, though, it comes down to who they think is going to do well.

“In the build-up to London 2012, Aaron Cook outperformed everyone in most of the tournaments and was the highest-ranked fighter. We all just thought Aaron was going and that was it. It hadn’t even entered our minds that someone else would be selected.

“Lutalo was picked, though, and it proved to be a good decision.”

Sansum is open about the fact that he is still perfecting his fighting technique. He is still growing into the sport despite his numerous successes and believes the time he now has to work on his technique behind-the-scenes before the Dutch Open in Eindhoven on March 12 can make a meaningful difference.

“Last year, we were fighting so frequently that we were kind of just ticking over in training,” he said. “There was no real time to make big changes to your fightplan or your physicality.

“We have two-and-a-half months until the first tournament now and I am really looking forward to getting stuck into that.

“I am meeting a nutritionist who has worked with Conor McGregor, Andy Murray and Anthony Joshua to talk about what I can do to get myself in the utmost physical condition for taekwondo whether that involves putting more muscle on or changing my body shape.

“Other than that, there are a few technical kicks I want to work on. I want to bring some new stuff into my arsenal and have some more diversity in the new year.

“We have a new, state-of-the-art gym in Manchester with facilities such as performance analysis to look at footage of your fights and training. We have everything under the same roof now, which we didn’t have before, and I want to take full advantage of that.”