Team Scotland could glean up to a third more medals than their best Games’ performance on record when the Commonwealth Games arrive in Glasgow in two years time.
Speaking at the first annual Scottish Student Sport (SSS) conference in Edinburgh, Michael Cavanagh, chairman of Commonwealth Games Scotland, intimated the host nation has been tipped to land up to 45 medals over the course of the 11-day competition.
The lead body for Commonwealth sport in Scotland has remained tight-lipped on exact medal targets in the build-up to Scotland’s third Games’, merely calling for a better haul than the 33 medals won in Edinburgh in 1986.
However, delivering a keynote address last week, Cavanagh told sport and physical activity representatives from across the tertiary sector Team Scotland has the potential to exceed expectation in chasing record Commonwealth Games success.
Preparations to deliver the Games in Glasgow in 2014 are “absolutely on target” with a massive recruitment drive set to commence ahead of the event, the former international athlete, who competed for Scotland and Great Britain in wrestling, added.
He said: “This important question I get asked a lot – medal target. I occasionally go on the BBC Sport Nation show, probably about at least once a year, and John Beattie asks me this every time. Kheredine Idessane, who is now the Olympics/Commonwealth Games Correspondent, started a recent interview by twice asking. They won’t get a definitive answer, yet.
“The simple answer is we’ve made it very clear we want to have our best ever medal performance and that would mean in 1986 we won 33 medals in Edinburgh. So our target is more than 33.
“There was a bit of research done by someone from an academic institution in Canada I believe last year which was published which said this guy has got some analysis of home team performances that seemingly has worked for previous Games and thinks we’ll get 40 to 45. Well, that’s a decent haul and I don’t disagree with him. But until the full team is picked in June 2014 the public target remains more than 33.”
Around 6,500 athletes from 71 countries around the world will participate in Scotland’s third Commonwealth Games between July 23 and August 3 2014.
Alan Robertson
A graduate in Politics and Journalism from the University of Strathclyde, Alan joined the Holyrood team as a reporter in May 2012 fresh from finishing his studies. Alan spent four years in student media, the last of which helping to launch the award-winning Glasgow Journal as Managing Editor, and continues to work part-time as a sub-editor in sport for the Sunday...