Commonwealth Games chief sets goals for Scots team

MORE medals than ever before. More gold medals, in particular, than ever before. And a bigger team than ever before.
Commonwealth Games Scotland chief executive Jon Doig wants the largestever team. Picture: SNSCommonwealth Games Scotland chief executive Jon Doig wants the largestever team. Picture: SNS
Commonwealth Games Scotland chief executive Jon Doig wants the largestever team. Picture: SNS

Those are the key aims for Scotland at next year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, announced yesterday as the country’s governing body for the event launched its campaign to get the whole nation behind the team. The campaign – Go Scotland! – aims to increase public awareness of the 17 sports in the Games, and raise the profiles of the athletes aiming to be selected for the team.

The selection period is now open, and 11 athletes in three sports have already performed up to the required standard at least once. They include distance runners Susan Partridge, Hayley Haining and Derek Hawkins, all of whom finished inside the qualifying time at last Sunday’s Virgin London Marathon. In addition, the bowls team have already secured their maximum quota of ten places as a result of their performances at the world championships last December.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

While it is cheaper to get athletes to a home event, Commonwealth Games Scotland (CGS) insist they will not compromise their standards merely to ensure they end up with the biggest team so far selected. Team Scotland will surpass the record of 202 members set in Manchester in 2002 only if enough competitors meet the qualification criteria, which are very similar to those applied at the last three Games.

Commonwealth Games Scotland chief executive Jon Doig wants the largestever team. Picture: SNSCommonwealth Games Scotland chief executive Jon Doig wants the largestever team. Picture: SNS
Commonwealth Games Scotland chief executive Jon Doig wants the largestever team. Picture: SNS

Athletes have to meet the individual selection standards and also convince the selectors they have a realistic chance of finishing in the top eight, where appropriate, or in the top two-thirds in the case of some smaller events. In key sports such as athletics and swimming, top eight means making the final.

“Competing for Scotland at a Commonwealth Games is a highlight of any athlete’s career and the added opportunity to compete at a home games is a privilege experienced by very few athletes,” CGS chief executive Jon Doig said yesterday. “Over the last three Games cycles, Team Scotland has had increasing success, largely as a result of a robust, clear, consistent selection policy and a strong team ethos.

“This approach will continue so that each athlete selected will be assured of the support of their team-mates in the knowledge that all have deserved the honour of representing Scotland at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. That has actually come from the athletes. They want like-minded people around them and they want to be able to say to team-mates: ‘I know why I’m here and I know why you’re here’.

At previous Games, Doig has announced a specific target for medals and has been remarkably accurate with his predictions. This time – or at least until the Games are much closer and there is an accurate idea of how Scottish athletes are faring – the aim is simply to top the total of 33 from Edinburgh in 1986, and to do better than the 11 gold medals won in Melbourne in 2006.

“The two aims of the policy are to ensure that Scotland selects a team that performs with distinction in 2014, and has its most successful Games ever in terms of medals won,” continued Doig. “A lot of new names will come forward, and there will be those who we expect to be there will not be there.

“A month before Melbourne, for example, the great Ian Thorpe [of Australia] pulled out. [Scottish swimmer] David Carry was in the form of his life and won a wonderful 400 metres. Six months beforehand that would have been hard to predict.

“We still have two summer seasons to go before the Games. What the final targets will be, we’ll look at closer to the time.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The home team would have been that bit more confident of adding to their medal tally had Sir Chris Hoy, who retired last week, been available to compete in the velodrome which bears his name. The six-times Olympic gold medallist explained when he announced his retirement that he will still be involved behind the scenes in a mentoring role, and Doig added that Hoy’s precise involvement had yet to be determined.

“Every team would love to have a Chris Hoy. We’ll be talking about his role going forward.”

• For more details of how to get involved in supporting the team, see goscotland.org.

Forrest aiming to go one better with home advantage

BOXER Scott Forrest already has a major medal in his collection – a silver from last year’s World Youth Championships. Next year he wants to go one better by winning gold in Glasgow.

The light-heavyweight from Forth in Lanarkshire believes that, by rights, he should have come home from that tournament in Armenia with gold but, in a close final against home favourite Nikol Arutyunov, he was outpointed 13-9. Despite the disappointment, the 18-year-old revelled in the frenzied atmosphere, and hopes for something similar – in his favour this time – at Glasgow 2014.

“There were eight or nine thousand people there including the president of Armenia, and the place just shook with everybody shouting,” the Scottish champion said yesterday. “I thought I beat him and so did a lot of people.

“That was some experience. After the second round, I was about five points down so I knew I’d need to stop the guy in the last round. But he just ran, and there was nothing I could do about it.”

One of 17 athletes – one for each Commonwealth sport – at the launch in Glasgow of the Go Scotland! camapign, Forrest got into boxing as a way of channelling his energy.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“I used to get in fights at school,” he said. “Boxing started off as just a hobby to keep me off the streets, but the more fights I got, I just seemed to get better and better.

“It’s calmed me down a lot. I used to have a bit of a temper but boxing is like a stress relief. I’m a completely different person from what I used to be. I used to be quite a chubby wee guy so, without boxing, I’d probably be a wee fat boy sitting in front of the telly.”

Related topics: