Glasgow 2014: Best athletics results since 1986

Scotland’s track and field athletes at Glasgow 2014 posted the country’s best Commonwealth Games performance since the boycotted Edinburgh 1986 event.
Libby Clegg and her team mates gave Scotland's best track and field results since 1986. Picture: Neil HannaLibby Clegg and her team mates gave Scotland's best track and field results since 1986. Picture: Neil Hanna
Libby Clegg and her team mates gave Scotland's best track and field results since 1986. Picture: Neil Hanna

Libby Clegg’s gold medal, silvers won by Eilidh Child and Lynsey Sharp and Mark Dry’s bronze made up the best tally since a haul of five in Auckland in 1990.

But a points table for top eight-finishes in finals, widely regarded as the best barometer for athletics at the Commonwealth Games, showed Scotland finished in 8th place with 73 points.

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England were the top nation in track, field and marathon with Australia second and Kenya third.

Scotland’s result was their best since the tally of 107 points from Edinburgh 1986, when the absence of a number of nations made final places and top-eight finishes easier to achieve.

Seven Scottish athletes were picked by Team GB and NI for the European Champs in Zurich next week, including Hampden medallists Sharp and Child, and former 100m Olympic champion Allan Wells - a Glasgow 2014 ambassador - claimed the Games could now act as a launch pad for future success.

He said: “What the Scottish athletes did at Hampden was reasonable. We have to be pretty happy with four medals.

“It is a young team. Many of them are still learning about themselves and about the big moments in sport. I was 26 when I went to the Commonwealth Games for the first time so there’s the majority of this team under that age.

“Let’s see if they can step-up a wee bit over the next few years. Can they use Glasgow 2014 as the platform? Everybody has to be so professional - I mean the governing body, the athletes, the coaches.

“The attitude must be 100 per cent and the motivation has to be right. That can come from coaches as well as the athletes themselves. It is so important.”

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