Scottish badminton’s worst kept secret is out following the long overdue confirmation that Kirsty Gilmour will represent Great Britain in the women’s singles at the Olympics in Rio.

Anyone with the vaguest interest in the sport knew long before the final day of the qualifying period, on which she created her latest piece of history by becoming the first Scot ever to contest a European Championship singles final, that this would be so since she has been the dominant British figure in her discipline for the last four years. For context, ranked 15 in the world, she is further ahead of her nearest domestic rival than is Andy Murray, her fellow racqueteer whom she views as a role model.

However what has changed since she enjoyed a similar experience when claiming another Scottish first by reaching a Commonwealth Games singles final in Glasgow two years ago, is that this young woman, who has always been a class act as an ambassador for her sport, has grown in awareness of her status and of what she can hope to achieve.

On the one hand, as outlined in HeraldSport last week, she remains sufficiently unaffected to almost trill with excitement at the prospect of being in the same team as Murray, while she also feels it is not that long ago since she was receiving congratulatory messages for getting into the world’s top 100 and setting targets to try to take players in the world’s top 40 to three sets.

Gilmour has, however, learned from the way she and former doubles partner Imogen Bankier were treated by a previous GB Badminton regime, that she has to stand up for herself.

“It was about me growing up a little bit and taking ownership of all my own stuff,” she explained.

“I’ve got a lot better at general communication. People have done a lot of speaking on my behalf and that doesn’t happen so much any more because I speak on my own behalf now. There’s a lot more adult communication. I’m happy with the relationship (with GB Badminton) now.”

That is partly due to a much needed regime change at Milton Keynes, new personnel realising that Gilmour was well within her rights to insist on being allowed to remain based in Glasgow rather than be forced to live among concrete cows.

“It was difficult at the start figuring things out and how they were going to work, but we’ve arrived at a really good point and things work a lot better now,” she continued.

“There’s a lot more communications with group emails linking the physios, nutritionists, doctors down there, linking in with the doctors up in SportScotland. It’s not just me and the coaches who have to communicate, it’s the whole team and it’s working quite well now.”

As we chatted the other day, then, there were knowing smiles with reminders exchanged that the words ‘if selected’ must be included in any articles appearing ahead of the official team announcement, but the 22-year-old’s focus is on the medium to long-term as she seeks to both compete at and learn from what she has every reason to anticipate will be her first rather than only involvement in an Olympic Games.

“I’m not satisfied with just getting a tracksuit. I think I can’t not think that (winning a medal is achievable). Why would I be going if I didn’t think that?” she asked, rhetorically.

On the basis of the information she has been given her end of season ranking surge that has taken her above Michelle Li, the Canadian who beat her in the Commonwealth final, means she has earned the last of the seeded places – oddly there are apparently 13 - at the Olympics, however, aware as she is that Bankier’s Olympic experience at London 2012 was not all that it might be a year after the Glaswegian had been a World Championship finalist, Gilmour is determined to absorb everything she can with a view to the longer term too.

“I hope I’ve got another Olympics in my future so it’s a chance to gather more information,” she noted.

“It is going to be six, seven, eight times as big as Commonwealths on scale, so it will be another new situation, another new multi-sport event, a different team environment. I won’t know as many people as I did with Team Scotland in the Emirates. It’s going to be a lot of new stuff but I’m ready for it.”