THEY will be nursing hangovers and sweeping up the debris on Australia's Gold Coast two years from today, with the Commonwealth Games there having concluded the previous evening. The 2018 edition will mark the 20th anniversary of Scotland's combined worst performance in athletics and swimming. The two sports won just a single medal each in Kuala Lumpur. Scotland never endured a poorer haul by the two principal sports in the history of the Games.

A silver medal by Alison Curbishley at 400 metres and by Alison Sheppard in the 50m freestyle provoked anguish and heart-searching, but the National Lottery raised expectation as well as funding, proving a turning point. The Lottery had kicked in by the 2002 Games in Manchester where the medal tally improved: five in the pool, two in track and field; 12 (10-2) in 2006; and nine (7-2) in 2010. In Glasgow 2014 the joint haul was 14 (10-4), the best since the 15 of pre-lottery Brisbane in 1982, where athletics took 10 to swimming's five. This was otherwise surpassed only by London in 1934 (17) when athletics (10) achieved the rarely to be repeated feat of upstaging the swimmers.

The 2018 qualifying standards for athletics and swimming, announced recently, are stringent, team-restricting, and thought-provoking.

There was an aquatics team of 44 in Glasgow, and 58 in athletics. The likelihood is significantly less than half that: "considerably smaller than in Glasgow," acknowledges scottishathletics chief executive Nigel Holl, while swimming could be down to just 16.

Ability to finish in the top six (formerly top eight) is now swimming's requirement. Teams will be smaller, dictated by Australian organisers. Scottish Swimming has made a radical change to its selection procedure. They will rank all competitors according to the percentage by which they are inside the qualifying standard, and will nominate the top 16. More may possibly be added at the discretion of the performance director and national coach.

The 16 are likely to require to beat existing Scottish records to qualify. Such intense criteria has helped drive up recent GB and domestic performance, and more medals than track and field with fewer competitors has become the norm for swimming.

Scottish swimmers won three gold, three silver, four bronze in Glasgow. Athletics took one gold, two silver, one bronze. The gold was in visually impaired sprinting, a new addition to the programme.

Now, however, scottishathletics seems to have taken a leaf from swimming's manual. Competitors are guaranteed automatic selection if they finish inside the standard and among the first three at next year’s British Championships – also the trial for the World Championships in London.

Yet this will be a huge ask. In every men's and women's event, athletics standards for Gold Coast are higher than in Glasgow, save in women's sprint hurdles and sprint relay, where they remain the same. In 16 events (eight of each sex), the standard sought is superior to the existing Scottish native record. This will inevitably require athletes to travel abroad for optimum climatic conditions. Though the governing body has been helpful in securing appropriate competitive opportunities in the recent past, some athletes were inevitably left unhappy.

Unless Cameron Tindle's meteoric rise continues, there is unlikely to be any male sprinter, given the 10.22 qualifying mark for the 100m, and 20.80 for 200m. Only five Scots have ever achieved the 100m time, and only two of them (Olympic champion Allan Wells in 1978, and European junior champion Elliott Bunney in 1986) on home soil. The last to log the time was Fifer Ian Mackie, when he reached the Atlanta Olympic semi-final (10.17) in 1996.

Six Scots have achieved the 200m time, but just two in Scotland: Wells in 1978 and European champion and native record-holder Dougie Walker in 1996. So a sprint relay squad seems even less likely. The qualifying time, 39.50, is inside the native best of 39.59 achieved at Meadowbank in 1983 by Cameron Sharp, Gus McCuaig, Wells, and Drew McMaster.

Women's sprinting appears even bleaker. Only one Scot, Helen Golden (11.40, at Crystal Palace in 1974) has ever been inside the Games 100m standard of 11.40. At 200m, Lee McConnell, in 2008, was the last to reach the required 23.30. It's 23 years since the previous woman to make the grade, and only four have ever done so.

Jax Thoirs (pole vault) and Nick Percy (discus) already have outdoor national senior records awaiting ratification from this year's efforts. But in the past 10 years in only two other Olympic events has the Scottish national men's record been improved.

Laura Muir (1500m) and Lynsey Sharp (800m) were the only senior women to break records last year, but in the past 10 years seven other women's national records have fallen.

While encouraging, it does not match swimming's progress.

In the 18 men's individual events, records in all but four have been set inside the past 33 months. The oldest of the other four was set 10 years ago last month, in Melbourne by Todd Cooper. In the five relays, four have been set inside the last 21 months. The fifth was in 2007.

Of the 18 women's individual records, nine have fallen in the past 33 months, including three this week at Tollcross by Kathleen Dawson. Oldest of the others is Alison Sheppard's 50m freestyle mark which won Commonwealth gold in 2002. The rest were all in the past 10 years. All five relay records were set in the past three years.

By comparison, athletics has senior men's native marks (5000m, 10,000m, and marathon) dating back to the 1970 Commonwealth Games. The women have one (4 x 100m).

Swimming's annual report for the year to February shows 264 records in all age groups.

Last year alone, 27 senior long and short course national records were broken.

Perhaps tougher standards which have worked for swimming will now have an impact on athletics. Or there will be a very small team indeed, in Gold Coast.