NIKKI HEAD OVER HEELS

COMMONWEALTH GAMES Manson thrilled after late call-up to Scots team

NIKKI MANSON was so gutted at missing out on the Commonwealth Games she planned to take herself to the one place in the world she knew would be guaranteed to ignore them.

But after an 11th-hour reprieve the Glaswegian high jumper is head over heels to be off down under rather than America – and with a new Scottish record putting a spring in her step on the way.

The 23-year-old was announced yesterday as 92 were added to the now 200-strong Team Scotland roster for the Gold Coast Games kicking off in seven weeks’ time.

With the track and field team announced at the start of December, rival Emma Nuttall took the high jump slot, only to pull out with injury last week.

Manson said: “I was so disappointed originally that I didn’t really want to watch the Games at all, I just wanted to be away.

“I was in America last year at university so I was going to head there to train again in April because every time I mentioned I was wanting to make the Commonwealth Games standard they didn’t know what I was talking about. They did always say my English was really good though!

“But now I’m here it’s sinking in a bit more. I feel for Emma, she told me she had been injured and it must have been a hard decision. I messaged her when it came out.

“So when I got the call on Thursday I was pretty pragmatic, not particularly excited. I had been disappointed when I wasn’t initially selected so it didn’t really register.

“Then on Saturday I knew but a lot of my friends didn’t.

“Now it’s maybe hitting home, getting photos and doing interviews and meeting the rest of the team.

“It was always touch and go, athletics had a small team. But I didn’t think anyone would be added at this stage and I had already accepted my fate so that’s why I was so shellshocked.” Manson hit the standard required two weeks ago and she was in record-breaking mode last weekend, leaping 1.90m to break the Scottish mark at the Scottish Universities Championships. That’s just 6cm short of the Commonwealth Games record but she admits she’s still a work in progress. Manson said: “I always knew I’d jump 1.90m, I just wasn’t sure when it would come. I’m not technically the most proficient. “I’m not that good at the Fosbury Flop so I have a lot of points to work on. “I need to get my head back and my bum up. I’ve done it for quite a while but only the last couple of years I’ve specialised. I’ve been a bit lazy in the air and relied on my physicality but I still broke the indoor Scottish record and I’d like to get the outdoor one as well, which is 1.91m just now.”

Manson, who graduated with a degree in biomedical engineering before heading to Akron University in Ohio last year to work on her jumping, admits she’s uncertain what the future holds for her, post-Games.

But then she’s not sure what the pre-Games looks like either! She laughed: “I know when I’m going, I don’t know when I’m coming back!

“And my family have been asking questions I don’t know the answers to but they want to be there to support me as well.

“After that, I’m still trying to figure out what to do. I’m not sure if I want to use my degree in biomedical engineering.

“But right now I feel like I took a year out and that year has now been validated.”