The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Eilidh still gets Games ‘buzz’
Hurdler ready for different experience as she bids for third medal on Gold Coast
Eilidh Doyle will race for a third successive Commonwealth medal after being named among 25 track and field athletes selected for the Gold Coast 2018 Games.
The Kinross-shire hurdler may have been on the podium 15 times at major international events but her enthusiasm for making that 16 in Australia will be the same as if she was going for her first.
Doyle, now 30, won silver medals at Delhi in 2010 and Glasgow four years later and knows that she is nearer the end of her career than the beginning.
“Probably, realistically, this will be my last Commonwealth Games,” the former Perth Grammar School teacher admitted. “I don’t know if I will be coming to this in four years’ time.
“I just take every year as it comes. At the moment I am just loving my training, loving my sport and I still feel I can run faster, so there’s not any chance of slowing down soon.
“At the moment I can see myself wanting to go to Tokyo (Olympics 2020) so I see myself still being around for a couple of years still.
“It still gives me a buzz. To be around each other and see each other again you can feel the excitement, especially the newer ones who are experiencing it for the first time.
“I remember being here for the launch of the 2014 team for Glasgow and, once you get everyone together and talk about it, the buzz kicks in so it’s nice to be preparing for Australia.
“When I think back to Delhi in 2010 it was a totally different case – it was the end of the season, it was in October whereas this one is at the very start in April.
“It is going to be different to Glasgow because that was such a special Games and for me it was such an amazing experience to be able to win a medal and do a lap of honour in front of that home support.
“They do call them the friendly games for a reason, it is always great fun and it is nice for us as well because it is our only chance to compete as Team Scotland so yes, it will be different but just as exciting as the other two.”
Doyle is targeting gold in Australia.
She said: “I fancy my chances as much as anyone else.
“It is going to be interesting this year because it is a different time of the season for us.
“We normally don’t start racing until May so to be ready and peaking for April, it is going to be difficult but we will be able to do it and it would be nice to come away with a gold.”
Doyle and Carnoustie’s Eilish McColgan are two of 19 athletes who competed at Hampden Park in 2014.
Fellow Glasgow medallists, 800m runner Lynsey Sharp and hammer thrower Mark Dry, are also named.
Callum Hawkins, whose fourth place in the World Championships marathon equalled the best British performance in the event, will line up alongside Robbie Simpson, a relative newcomer to the event following success as a mountain runner, including bronze at the 2015 World Championships.
In a strong endurance squad, Dunblane’s Andrew Butchart will make
I am just loving my training, loving my sport and I still feel I can run faster, so there’s not any chance of slowing down soon. EILIDH DOYLE
his Commonwealth Games debut following top-eight finishes at both Olympic Games and world championships, while Olympians 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 in the triathlon and 10,000m to become the first athlete to compete in two sports for Team Scotland at a single games.
Holly McArthur, 17, becomes Scotland’s first Commonwealth Games heptathlete for 20 years after completing a ‘full house’ of seven individual event personal bests to reach the qualifying score at the European junior championships in Grosseto, Italy.
Another athlete on the rise in 2017 has been Aberdeen’s Zoey Clark, making a breakthrough over 400m to reach the semi-finals and taking silver in the 4x400m at the London World Championships.
The Gold Coast 2018 para-sport programme is the largest in Commonwealth Games history and Team Scotland will be well represented on the track.
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, Sammi Kinghorn steps up in distance to tackle the 1500m and marathon in Gold Coast.
At just 21 she is the senior member of a strong Scottish trio in the para-sport events, joined by 17-year-old Rio 2016 Paralympic medallist Maria Lyle and 18-year-old Amy Carr, who won two golds and a bronze at this summer’s world junior championships.
Perth’s Seain Cook will be one half of a men’s beach volleyball pairing. With the sport making its debut at Gold Coast 2018, Cook and Edinburgh’s Robin Miedzybrodzki make history as the first athletes from the sport to be selected for a Commonwealth Games.