Scotland's Commonwealth Games athletes aim to do better than Glasgow

It may be over 10,000 miles from Hampden to the Gold Coast but Scotland's athletics chief believes the 26-strong team can produce an even better overall performance Down Under than they achieved on home soil.

800m hurdler Eilidh Doyle with the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games mascot. Picture: Jane Barlow/PA Wire

The track and field selection for April’s Commonwealth Games in Queensland was confirmed in Stirling yesterday with high hopes that the impressive showings by the nation’s athletes in the past few years will continue and deliver a clutch of medals to Team Scotland’s tally.

Nineteen of the athletes named were part of the team that delivered their best Commonwealth Games medal haul for 20 years in Glasgow three-and-a-half years ago.

Since those heady summer days in Mount Florida, the sport has gone from strength to strength with a record 15 athletes selected for the Rio Olympic Games two years later and six for the Paralympic Games. At this summer’s home World Championships in London there were a record 16 Scots on the British team, captained by the inspirational Eilidh Doyle, who will compete for a third successive Commonwealth Games medal over the 400m hurdles in Gold Coast.

Doyle’s fellow Glasgow medallists, 800m runner Lynsey Sharp and hammer thrower Mark Dry, are also named and aiming to replicate their podium finishes.

One of the stand-out performances at those London World Championships came from Scottish Athlete of the Year Callum Hawkins, whose fourth place in the marathon equalled the best ever British performance in the event.

In a strong endurance squad, Andrew Butchart will make his Commonwealth Games debut following top-eight finishes at both Olympic Games and World Championships, while Olympians Eilish McColgan, Steph Twell and Lennie Waite form a formidable force in the women’s events.

Fellow Olympian Beth Potter is set for an unprecedented double in Gold Coast. Already named to represent Scotland in Triathlon she will take to the track for the 10,000m following the conclusion of thatcompetition. In doing so she will become the first athlete to compete in two sports for Scotland at a single Games.

The Gold Coast 2018 Para-Sport programme is the largest in Commonwealth Games history.

Having broken her own world record to take gold over 200m at the World Para-Athletics Championships in London, going on to take a second gold in the 100m and bronze in the 400m, 21-year-old Sammi Kinghorn steps up in distance to tackle

both the 1500m and the marathon.

Scottishathetics performance director Rodger Harkins said: “When you take in the way Scottish athletes and coaches have stepped up over the past two years – and their involvement in the Olympics in Rio and then London 2017 – then we see the strength and the depth.

“What we have with this selection is a team with a very high percentage of final contenders. The overall selection policy for Team Scotland was predicated on a top six-finish in each event. So immediately that raised the bar in terms of standards from Hampden, because the selection for Glasgow 2014 was based on a potential top eight finish.”

Also confirmed for Gold Coast are boxer Sean Lazzerini, gold medallist for Team Scotland at the 2015 Commonwealth Youth Games, and men’s Beach Volleyball pairing Seain Cook and Robin Miedzybrodzki.