Winning medals and friends

The medal-rush has started! Gold, silver and bronze were all collected on a successful opening day of the Commonwealth Games for Team Scotland.

Years of the kind of hard work and dedication that many of us can only admire gained their rightful rewards as some of our finest athletes pulled off a few shock results.

A bronze medal was perhaps the biggest story of the day, with Marc Austin managing to beat Jonny and Alistair Brownlee in the triathlon, with the brothers having dominated the event for years. Austen said he had been “scared to dream” about winning a medal but had produced “the performance of his life”.

Scotland’s basketball team also deserves plaudits for recording their first ever win over England, adding to the bragging rights secured by the Scottish rugby team’s triumph at Murrayfield.

But we should always remember that one of the central themes of such Games is to make friends and build ties between nations, a tradition dating back to the sacred truce or “Ekecheiria” proclaimed for the original Olympics in Ancient Greece.