Swimmer Robbie Renwick has been named Scottish Sportsperson of the Year 2015.
Following an outstanding season, which saw him become World Champion for the first time in his career, swimmer, Robbie Renwick was named Scottish Sportsperson of the Year 2015 and awarded the Emirates Lonsdale Trophy, at the Commonwealth Games Scotland Awards Dinner in Glasgow last night.
Fellow swimmer, 18-year-old Duncan Scott, then collected the Sir Peter Heatly Trophy for the Young Sportsperson of the Year, to make it a clean sweep of the main awards for swimming.
The dinner, organised by Commonwealth Games Scotland, is one of the highlights of the Scottish sporting calendar and recognises the achievements of Scotland’s athletes in Commonwealth Games Federation member sports over the past 12 months.
This year was a celebration of the achievements of Youth Team Scotland, recently returned from the Commonwealth Youth Games in Samoa and of the senior Scottish athletes vying for selection for next year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio.
Renwick scooped the top award for playing a key part of Great Britain’s 4x200m Freestyle Relay team at the 2015 Swimming World Championships in Kazan. At age 27, his split of 1:45.98 to win gold in Kazan was the fastest of his long career.
His career for Scotland started with the Commonwealth Youth Games in 2004. Medal success followed in the next three Commonwealth Games in 2006, 2010 and 2014 where he anchored Team Scotland to three successive team silvers in the 4x200m Freestyle Relay and won individual gold in the 200m Freestyle in 2010.
Training in Scotland throughout his career, initially in Aberdeen and then in Glasgow, Robbie is now based with the successful University of Stirling squad, leading by example to the next generation of Scottish swimmers.
He received two Business Class flights to Dubai, courtesy of Lonsdale Trophy sponsor Emirates and becomes the third swimmer to win the title following in the footsteps of Gregor Tait (2006) and Hannah Miley (2010).
A delighted Robbie Renwick said: "It’s absolutely amazing to win, just seeing the people who have won this award in the past few years, it’s stunning to be up there with the best in Scotland. It really means a lot to me.
“This year has been the highlight of my swimming career. From being at the point after the Commonwealth Games last year, not sure if I wanted to keep swimming to turning that around and being World Champion a year later is hugely exciting.
"Changing my training base from Glasgow to Stirling has had a huge benefit and everything has all come together really nicely. I’ve got another year to Rio 2016 and it is exciting knowing that we could be even faster next year and it’s now about turning that World Championship gold into an Olympic gold medal."
Robbie saw off stiff competition from the three other incredible finalists; Rower, Heather Stanning and Para-sport athletes Neil Fachie (Cycling) and Gordon Reid (Wheelchair Tennis).
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