Team Scotland

Gerry Hassan’s article, “Olympics to kick off with national confusion” (Perspective, 21 April), points out that Team GB is a mish-mash of part of the UK, its dependencies and territories. Similarly, Team Ireland is constituted of athletes from two different countries.

Neither GB nor Ireland (island thereof) is a sovereign state as defined by the United Nations, so there is no logical reason why Scotland could not enter a team into the Olympics.

Indeed, a precedent was set in 1908, when Scotland played in the inaugural Olympic hockey tournament and won the bronze medal – the first Olympic goal being scored by Ian Laing from Hawick.

Michael N Crosby

Muiravonside

By Linlithgow