Diver, 14, is named in Games team

Published on Wednesday 18 August 2010 17:56

A FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD diver who practises her sport because it is "so close to flying" has been named as the youngest member of the Scotland team for next month's Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

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• Fourteen-year-old diver gracereid will be among 191 athletesflying the flag for scotland at the Commonwealth games in India Picture: SNS

Grace Reid, a pupil at George Watson's College in Edinburgh, won her place in the 191-strong team just days after coming fourth in the European Championships in Budapest.

Although inexperienced compared to competitors such as bowler Willie Wood - at 72 the oldest in the team - Grace has in fact been diving for more than half her lifetime. "I did other sports too, but diving always appealed to me because it was so close to flying," she said at yesterday's team announcement in Stirling.

"I did swimming from a really young age, and I was swimming at the Commonwealth Pool with my mum and saw one of the older divers doing a huge, spinny dive off the ten-metre board and it inspired me. I was frightened at first, but I think my parents were more scared than me."