Austin looks but won’t touch gold

● Triathlete confident ahead of European Championships but has to earn a medal

Athletes are supposed to be willing to move heaven and earn to get their hands on medals. Marc Austin, though, was determined to keep his distance from a special collection of them yesterday.

The 24-year-old Glaswegian triathlete, who memorably beat the fabled Brownlee brothers to claim a bronze that brought Scotland their first medal at the recent Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, was in the city’s George Square as the 50-day countdown to the 2018 European Championships was marked by displaying the victors’ spoils.

Being staged from August 2 to 12 in Glasgow, the event is unprecedented in bringing together six different sports in a single such championship – which will be Europe’s biggest this year.

To recognise this unification, which will see 3,000 athletes compete in cycling, triathlon, aquatics, golf, gymnastics and rowing events, a specially commissioned standardised set of medals has been produced. For Austin it was a case of looking but not touching.

“I didn’t want to,” he said. “It just feels a bit strange to be touching a medal you haven’t earned yet, even if it is for media purposes.”

His bronze from Australia is a medal, meanwhile, that has transformed his status in the eyes of the sport-watching public. Austin was the plucky loser at Strathclyde Park for Glasgow’s Commonwealth games in 2014, riding in a three-man breakaway with the triathlon titans Alistair and Jonny, before slipping out of contention as they took gold and silver.

It was a different story in the Gold Coast. His third place finish contrasted with the brothers only coming in seventh and tenth, and Austin accepts this has altered how the trajectory of his career is perceived.

“Just because in Scotland the Commonwealth Games is so big. I had done things in my eyes which in my mind outshone 2014 but no-one seemed to be that interested,” he added.

“So, to have that medal now shows that I have progressed from four years ago. To have it, is a really is a good feeling, I definitely didn’t want to have 0 Marking 50 days to go in Glasgow’s George Square are (left to right): Marc Austin, sports minister Aileen Campbell with a medal, triathlete Jess Learmonth and 400-metre runner Martyn Rooney. gone backwards since then [in other people’s eyes].”

The Brownlees have struggled with injuries this year, which mean their participation in Glasgow is not guaranteed. If they don’t make it, Austin would not blanch at being regarded at the competitor most likely to claim gold in front of his countryfolk.

“That is the aim, to be the man to beat,” he said. “But there are going to be plenty of other triathletes coming here thinking the same. I am just going to have to get myself on that start line with the aim of getting a medal. If I fall short, I fall short. But I am just relishing the chance at another home championships.”

Austin doesn’t downplay the advantage home support can provide in the slog that is the event which requires competitors to complete a course across three disciplines with a 1,500m swim, a 40km cycle and a 10km run .

“The crowd makes a massive difference,” he said.

“In a triathlon, which is such a gruelling event, your mind is playing games on you, but a crowd just helps you shut all the negativity out and keep you on a positive roll.”

And being part of a Scottish team at a multi-sport event is also to modest Austin’s liking.

He added: “It is actually less pressure because, whereas when you go to a triathlon and the whole weekend is revolving around your race, with these kind of things you get a medal and then an hour later someone else has one and you’re just kind of forgotten about.”