IT’S not the losing that gets you down, Iwan Thomas admits. It’s hearing about it.

EDINBURGH cyclist Finlay Young has been tipped to become a future British Olympian after receiving funding as part of the Bank of Scotland Local Heroes initiative.

London Olympic semi-finalist Lee McConnell has announced she will not compete this year as she is expecting her first child with husband Craig Bonthron in early November.

ONE thousand training and volunteering places are to be made available to young jobless Scots as part of a Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games legacy scheme, Alex Salmond announced today.

Olympic gold medallist Jessica Ennis has confirmed that she will open her 2013 season at Meadowbank in the UK Women’s Athletic League Premier Division next month.

Eilish McColgan believes Commonwealth Games standards which are “fair” are driving 
Scotland’s track and field stars to Hampden.

On a difficult, emotional day, Capital hammer-throwers 
Susan McKelvie and Andy Frost led a procession of Scots to achieve Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games qualifying standards in the annual Loughborough International in the East Midlands yesterday.

Captain-for-the-day Eilidh Child made it six wins in nine appearances in the Loughborough International with victory in the first match event of the meeting.

FIRST night nerves are an inevitability, Eilidh Child declares, even in the afternoon. With three months of graft on both sides of the Atlantic behind her, the moment of truth for the Olympic semi-finalist comes today in her summer debut over 400 metres hurdles at the annual Loughborough International.

The Irishman who will lead Scotland’s track and field team at Hampden next summer in the Commonwealth Games takes charge of a number of the athletes for the first time for competitive business this weekend.

BRITISH Athletics head coach Peter Eriksson is devastated to be leaving his “dream job” after just seven months, admitting there is no better role in the athletics world.

European champions Lynsey Sharp and Eilidh Child will lead the Scotland team at this weekend’s Loughborough International.

Queen Margaret University student Allan Hamilton, who missed the recent British Universities Championships in Bedford due to exams, bounced back to win his first significant outdoor competition of the season when he won the long jump in the British League Premier Division match at Cardiff.

AROUND 8,000 women took part in the Bupa Great Women’s 10k in Glasgow today- the largest female running event in the UK.

YOU always have conflicting emotions when someone in your sport fails a drugs test. Those emotions are all the stronger when it has a direct effect on your own results.

Double Olympic champion Mo Farah will target a fifth straight victory in the Bupa London 10k road race on 27 May, event ­organisers have revealed.

THERE can’t be many athletes who have gone off to America for a few weeks and returned as European champion, but that’s what has happened to Lynsey Sharp. The Scottish 800-metre runner flies back from the USA today after an eventful stay, in which she also played a part in setting a new British record for the 4x800m relay.

Edinburgh University athletes Ray Bobrownicki and Rhona Auckland both struck gold on the second day of the British Universities Championships at Bedford yesterday.

Just back from three weeks altitude training at Font Romeu in France, where he was training so hard he did not even have a break to celebrate his 21st birthday, Lasswade track star Guy Learmonth will open his outdoor season in the British Universities Championships at Bedford this weekend.

Hammer-thrower Kimberley Reed (EAC) has turned to Scotland’s men’s record-holder Chris Black for coaching advice.