Last summer's Olympic Games inspired young fencer Mirren Black so much she has not been beaten for seven months and is now a British champion.

The 11-year-old from Walton-on-Thames, who trains at Cobham Fencing Club, won the British U12 fencing championship earlier this month to add to the county and regional championships she had already claimed during her impressive unbeaten record.

She is now targeting a step up to the U15 age group and even has her sights set on Olympic recognition in the future having been inspired by what she saw in London last summer.

“The Olympics is my ultimate goal but there’s a lot of other things and tournaments before then,” said Black, who is coached by Marc Bengry and fences with the foil.

“I was in London and watched a day of fencing and that inspired me. It was one competition but we saw about 10 fights.

“I have never seen professional fencing before so it was really exciting. There were so many people and it was really fast, so fast you didn’t know what had happened until the points went up.

“I really enjoy it, it is my favourite sport and I train three times a week for four-and-a-half hours.

“I started on plastic when I was six and competed in an U9 tournament and won. But there were not many other tournaments so I switched to metal when I was nine and then have been with the coach I have now since November 2011.”

Black’s victory at the Institute of Sport in Sheffield on May 6 was her biggest to date, winning five times to get through the pool stages and winning five elimination fights to get to gold – beating Emily Beardmore 7-6 in the final.

“It was exciting to be at such a big tournament but I was a bit nervous,” she said.

“There was a lot of pressure and there were 52 people and we had to qualify.

Your Local Guardian: Mirren Black

With foil in hand: Mirren, right, hard at work in training to become the British U12 fencing champion

“I couldn’t really believe that I won, it was just excellent and really good.”

Next up for Black, a pupil at Cleves School in Weybridge, is the U13 England Youth Championships next month. Then she hopes to climb the England U15 ranks enough to qualify for an international event in Paris next year.

“I am quite excited about the Youth Championships but most of the people are really tall so it’s going to be difficult,” she added.

Two other fencers from Cobham Fencing Club were also at the Championship. Lorenza Dell’Aquila finished 17th in the girls’ U12 category and Luca Plastow 27th in the boys’ U12 event.