Robbie Renwick scoops top Scottish sports award

Robbie Renwick has been named Scottish Sportsperson of the Year 2015 and awarded the Emirates Lonsdale Trophy, after an outstanding season in which he became world champion for the first time in his career.

Swimmer Robbie Renwick has had an outstanding season

Fellow swimmer, 18-year-old Duncan Scott, collected the Sir Peter Heatly Trophy for the Young Sportsperson of the Year, making it a clean sweep of the main awards for swimming.

The Commonwealth Games Scotland awards dinner in Glasgow on Saturday night recognised the achievements of Scotland’s athletes in Commonwealth Games Federation member sports over the past 12 months.

This year was a celebration of the achievements of Youth Team Scotland, recently returned from the Commonwealth Youth Games in Samoa, and of the senior Scottish athletes vying for selection for next year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio.

Renwick scooped the top award for playing a key part in Great Britain’s 4x200m freestyle relay team at the 2015 Swimming World Championships in Kazan. At the age of 27, his split of 1:45.98 to win gold in Kazan was the fastest of his long career. His career for Scotland started with the Commonwealth Youth Games in 2004. Medal success followed in the next three Commonwealth Games in 2006, 2010 and 2014, where he anchored Team Scotland to three successive team silvers in the 4x200m freestyle relay and won individual gold in the 200m freestyle
in 2010.

Renwick received two business class flights to Dubai, courtesy of Lonsdale Trophy sponsor Emirates , and becomes the third swimmer to win the title, following Gregor Tait (2006) and Hannah Miley (2010).

Renwick said: “It’s absolutely amazing to win, just seeing the people who have won this award in the past few years.

“It’s stunning to be up there with the best in Scotland.

“This year has been the highlight of my swimming career. Changing my training base from Glasgow to Stirling has had a huge benefit and everything has all come together really nicely.

“I’ve got another year to Rio 2016 and it is exciting knowing that we could be even faster next year, and it’s now about turning that World Championship gold into an Olympic gold medal.”

Renwick saw off competition from the three other finalists: rower Heather Stanning and para-sport athletes Neil Fachie (cycling) and Gordon Reid (wheelchair tennis).

Nominees for the Sir Peter Heatly Trophy for the Outstanding Young Sportsperson of the year were: Grant Ferguson, cycling; Samantha Kinghorn, para-athletics; Laura Muir, athletics, and Duncan Scott, swimming. Scott got the nod on the strength of his six medals, including three gold, at this year’s inaugural European Games in Baku, to become the most successful British athlete at the Games which, for aquatics, were doubling as the European Junior Championships.

Scott was unable to attend the dinner as he was collecting a further award at the British Swimming dinner in Manchester, but he sent a message of gratitude for the “huge honour”.

He added: “Making Rio 2016 will be the biggest challenge yet but it’s definitely on the cards.”