Morning Briefing: Friends tell of pride at Jamieson’s medal win

FRIENDS of Olympic medallist Michael Jamieson, who produced the swim of his career to clinch silver in the 200m breaststroke, have told of their delight at his achievement.

Jamieson’s counterparts from the University of Edinburgh swim club gathered together to cheer him on as he won Great Britain’s second medal in the pool.

The group included Kris Gilchrist who held the British record for the 200m breaststroke until Jamieson broke it and has known Jamieson for around nine years.

The 28-year-old said: “I actually can’t believe how fast he just swam there. There’s been a lot of talk about a potential gold medal there and he messaged me last night telling me what time he thought Daniel Gyurta was going to go and he wasn’t far off.

“I’ve seen what Michael does in training and we knew he was capable of going at a good personal best but to go 2 minutes 07.43 seconds was an absolute unbelievable swim.”

Gayle Biggart, 22, the club’s outgoing president, said: “We are all absolutely delighted. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, he trains really hard and he deserves it so much.

“We’re so proud, it’s such an amazing achievement.”

Scotland’s sports minister, Shona Robison, said Scotland was “proud” of Michael Jamieson’s medal win.

• A POLL has found that voters see Scottish Labour as “out of touch”, “incompetent” and “boring”.

Asked to pick out three words they felt best described the party, only five per cent chose “efficient” while just eight per cent opted for “trustworthy”, a YouGov survey has shown.

But 35 per cent of people said it was “out of touch”, 29 per cent “incompetent”, 26 per cent “boring” and 35 per cent

“untrustworthy”.

The Fabian Society, who commissioned the poll, said the findings showed Labour needed to come up with some fresh thinking if it was to eat into the SNP’s huge lead in voting preferences at Holyrood.

The survey also confirmed that large numbers of voters who backed Labour at Westminster switched to SNP because they believed the Nationalists had performed well at running the devolved government and had better policies.

• A TEENAGER who allegedly injured a great-grandmother by hitting an escalator’s emergency stop button at Waverley Station is to stand trial.

Nicola Scougal, 18, appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court yesterday and pleaded not guilty to a charge of culpable and reckless conduct.

Prosecution lawyers allege Scougal, of Hopefield Terrace, Bonnyrigg, Midlothian, culpably and recklessly pushed the emergency stop button on an escalator at Waverley Bridge on December 10, 2009.

Her supposed actions are said to have caused the moving stairs to have stopped immediately and caused Violet Roberts, 64, to fall down to her injury.

Mrs Roberts, of Dunfermline, Fife, allegedly suffered two broken wrists and needed emergency surgery after the incident, which was captured on CCTV. Footage of the alleged attack was shown on BBC1’s Crimewatch UK programme in September 2011.

Defence solicitor Caroline Kwek told the court that her client was continuing her not guilty plea.

The case was continued to August 31.