Marissa Petrie from Sokcho TKD club is already well known around Scotland for her successes in Poomsae (forms) competitions. 
She took up sport TKD only a few months ago and soon managed to win her first competition at a regional event in England beating players with a lot more sparring experience than her.  She entered the British Open with the Scottish National Team Development Squad (NTDS) in the junior division and was up against a very experienced fighter from Germany who is currently ranked second in her country, in her division.

“We knew that for Marissa winning this division, at least in this occasion, was too much to expect given how recently she took up sport TKD and how experienced her opponent was.  At the same time though, we were confident enough in her abilities to let her have a go against the German fighter.  Being able to pick up experience from such a great event is invaluable at this stage of Marissa’s development as it will help her improve her game.  Perhaps more crucially though at this stage, it will also help her make a clear assessment of the kind of work she needs to put in to become the player of international calibre she can be” were the comments of Scotland’s Head Coach, Nikos, after Marissa’s match.  Marissa lost to her German opponent despite having tried hard to get the result for herself.  She did gain though a greater insight into high performance TKD and made her way back to Scotland knowing that she has a much better understanding of what she needs to do to reach the next level.