Doug Gillon on Wednesday: Sporting inspiration takes many forms. Sometimes the fuse is lit by seeing your team or country win at rugby or football. The Test antics this week of Andrew Flintoff will surely have done it for a future generation of England cricket enthusiasts.

Sporting inspiration takes many forms. Sometimes the fuse is lit by seeing your team or country win at rugby or football. The Test antics this week of Andrew Flintoff will surely have done it for a future generation of England cricket enthusiasts, while a new generation of golf enthusiasts must have been spawned by what they witnessed of Tom Watson.

Beijing Olympic champions Chris Hoy and Becky Adlington are already role models for young swimmers and cyclists, and teenager Tom Daley's world diving title in Rome yesterday, after failure in China, is a triumph which will resonate far beyond the Plymouth brotherhood of bullies who made his life a misery.

Perhaps, somewhere this week, an octogenarian recalled the day his father took him to Lord's, and England's last victory over Australia there three-quarters of a century ago . . . a poignant reminder of the reason for his life-long passion.

If the past can be very evocative, forthcoming events can also be inspirational. Indeed, we are banking on it for the 2012 Olympics in London and the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. A generation of Scottish and British sportsmen is driven by that right now. Sometimes it can be a family sporting tradition, an enthusiastic parent, or a sibling who excels or motivates. There's a bit of all of that in the mind of Ritchie Austin right now. And why not?

A giant picture of him hangs over the M8 in Glasgow at Charing Cross. It's part of the advertising campaign to promote the 2014 Commonwealth Games, and was launched in 2007. "He's been living off it for the past two years," jokes his mum. But surely it's not a coincidence that, since then, Scottish and British titles have come into the family home.

Ritchie was selected for part of the campaign. So was Edinburgh swimmer Melissa Thomas, whose picture also graced the city skyline. With the opening ceremony for Glasgow 2014 exactly five years tomorrow, the images of their enthusiasm are a metaphor for Scotland's youth, and the vision of inspiring a generation.

Both were just nine when they were photographed for that 2014 campaign, so there was never a suggestion they'd be contenders for the team, but they themselves are inspired - and are helping send a message to the nation's youth - by the part they have played.

Ritchie is the reigning Scottish under-11 triathlon champion.

He won the title last year, long after the posters first appeared.

He is a member of the Glasgow Trampoline Club and has just qualified for this year's national finals in Perth. He is in the process of switching from Garscube Harriers, where both parents coached athletics, to Victoria Park, purely for convenience reasons. His brother, Mark, won the British under-17 aquathon title in Wales last weekend, and is already a member of the Scotstoun club. Mark is also a member of the Scottish triathlon squad, and will be 20 when the sport is part of the 2014 Games schedule at Strathclyde Park.

Both are pupils at Jordanhill School. Ritchie will return to P7 this autumn, and Mark to S5.

"My mum, dad and my uncle still cycle, and sometimes I go out with my mum at weekends," says Ritchie.

His big hero is Alistair Brownlee, the Olympic triathlete who is coached by leading former Scottish coach Malcolm Brown, and Scottish triathlon internationalist Jack Maitland.

Ritchie also swims competitively, "but I haven't really won anything . . . If there's one sport I dream of doing well at, it's triathlon," he says. "I dream about the Olympics and Commonwealth Games, but my brother might to do it for 2014. When I grow up I'd like to take up a job professionally in sport."

Yet he was selected by chance for the Games poster. "The guy who made the advertising campaign up - his son does triathlon, so that's why I was picked. They thought I was the right person for it. My brother was doing well at triathlon. I liked it, and it just seemed the natural thing to do."

Mum and dad take it in turns to run the taxi service to swim training. Mark had to be at Stirling with the triathlon squad for 6am yesterday, and Ritchie is up at 5am to train at Scotstoun today. "We get a long lie on Thursdays, so Wednesday is our night out," says mum.

Melissa will return to P7 at Preston Street primary, opposite Edinburgh's Commonwealth Pool, after the holidays. She has lost almost a year to illness since her advertising debut, "but she's a lot better now, and her times are now coming down again," says her mum, Yvonne. A giant poster of her was outside Murrayfield. "She was happy and excited about that, and thought it was pretty cool."

Melissa is also into netball, football and rock-climbing which she tried for the first time yesterday, and has now been followed into the Portobello club by her sister - more sibling inspiration. "Melissa is a technically gifted swimmer with enormous potential," says her first coach, Cath Fleming.

In sport, as in life, it's important to have dreams. It's equally important to dare to have them.

"If you don't have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?"

All of Scotland should dare to dream about the potential that waits to be unlocked five years from tomorrow.