HELENSBURGH taekwondo star Melanie Neil has been selected to represent Scotland at the forthcoming European Championships - and has launched an appeal to help with the cost of going to the event.

After successfully competing in last year's Professor Chang Ung Cup in Glasgow, coming away with the cup for her category and two gold medals, Melanie set her sights on her ultimate ambition of training with Scotland's taekwondo team.

Having taken up the sport in 2013 aged 39, Melanie attended training sessions with the national team when she was a senior colour belt, and pushed her technical & physical boundaries through this format of training.

The training sessions, held twice a month at the team's training centre in Alloa, were in addition to the regular sessions Melanie attended under the instruction of Scotland assistant coach Steven McLaren.

Back in January, Melanie attended the Alloa training centre for a three-hour selection process to be considered to join the team to represent Scotland.

Amongst the new hopefuls were the current team members, who were also vying to maintain their own positions in the team.

The selection process put them through a series of technical work, sparring, individual work and physical assessment exercises.

A few days later, Melanie received the information that she had been selected to represent Scotland at this year's European championships. which will be held at Liverpool's Echo arena from April 24-30.

Melanie has been training hard and has been selected to compete in the individual pattern, individual sparring and team pattern categories.

However, to compete at this level takes some heavy financial investment.

It costs on average from £1,000 to £3,000 to compete at major competitions, with both Melanie and Steven having run several raffles to help raise funds, with the UKTC running 'kick-a-thons' through their clubs to try and raise funds for the entire Scotland team.

Melanie said: “I would like to take this opportunity to thank the team at Chris Bowman Fitness for offering to pay for my squad tracksuit, FitforLife in Helensburgh for their nutrition and exercise advice, Suzanne Marshall for providing free physiotherapy treatment, and all the people that have donated to the campaign so far.

“Money is needed for training clothing, sparring equipment, travel, accommodation, competition fees and insurance.

“All donations and certainly full time sponsorship deals are very much welcomed, and I hope to do both my club and country proud in April.”

If you’d like to donate towards Melanie’s appeal,visit justgiving.com/melanieneil.