Wallace cherishes 2014 Bolt encounter as she prepares for step into the unknown

Erin Wallace doesn’t see the need to play it cool. Like other teenagers she loves a selfie. But only a limited number can claim to have one with a world famous sporting icon like Usain Bolt.

While many of the people she is sharing the Athletes Village with in Gold Coast look back on the 2014 Commonwealth Games as a massive career high, with medals among the most prized mementoes, the Scottish triathlete’s favourite memory is one that is often plastered across Instagram.

“I got one with Usain Bolt at Glasgow 2014 after he’d finished the 4x100m and he was on the victory lap,” said Wallace, pictured. “My friends and I ran down to the front and got that selfie. It’s featured on Instagram at least twice already!”

And that is not the only time she has got a little excited when meeting sporting heroes. A confident and talented swimmer from a young age, when she added running to the repertoire, and then got into mountain biking at the age of ten, triathlon seemed a natural progression.

“I’ve always loved sport from a young age, I love having the variety,” says the bubbly student, who lives in Newton Mearns. “My parents were swimmers and I trained with my sister so it was always a part of my life and swimming came first. Then I took up running, and then, when I was ten, I got on my bike and did my first one.”

Since those early days she has graduated to a level where crossing paths with the world’s elite is normal but she admits she still finds it hard to keep the excited kid within on a tight leash in such circumstances. “I met Jonny [Brownlee] at the World Championships – I’ve never met [his brother] Alistair before – he’s just a normal guy though,” she said. “No-one else was really fan-girling him except me!”

Now though she is a peer rather than a fan, something that seemed laughable to her as a 13-year-old, in Glasgow.

“I was a baton bearer in the 2014 relay and I remember people saying ‘Oh, will you be heading to Australia in four years?’ And I was like ‘obviously not, I’ll only be 17 and I’ll be nowhere near ready that young…’ So to have this opportunity is amazing,” she said.

But, although she has represented Scotland at the 2017 Commonwealth Youth Games, winning gold on the track, in the 1,500m, tomorrow’s women’s triathlon will be something of a step into the unknown. “I’ve never raced a senior triathlon before so it’ll be good to race against the people I’ll be coming up against over the next few years and get that experience,” she said.

Which can then be put to good use on Saturday when she plays her part in the mixed team relay. “But because it’s a relay and it’s a team which has never really been together, we don’t really know what position we’ll be in,” she added.

The baby of that mixed relay team, she will be joined by Marc Austin, Grant Sheldon and Beth Potter, who have the experience of participating in Glasgow four years ago.

“The relay is a third of what we normally do so it’s a 250m swim, 7km on the bike and a 1.5km run,” she explained. “It’s not that much compared to what we normally do so it should be fine.”