HOLLY McArthur knew she had arrived as an athlete on the world stage when she sat down to dinner in the Gold Coast athlete’s village alongside Australian hurdling great Sally Pearson. Now, the Scottish heptathlete plans to dine at the sport’s top table on a more permanent basis.

Home hero Pearson, a World and Olympic Champion in the 110m hurdles, never made it onto the start line out in her native Queensland, but the 18-year-old from Kilsyth - Scotland’s first Commonwealth Games heptathlete for 20 years - was entitled to feel pretty good about her maiden appearance at this level of competition. The Scottish Under-20 record holder came in tenth in all, having set new personal bests in the high jump and the shot put on the opening day of a competition which was eventually won by Katarina Johnson-Thompson.

“I remember the first time I got into the village, we got taken into the dining room,” recalled McArthur. “I sat down with my tray and Sally Pearson was sitting at the end of the table. They probably didn’t know who I was but there were all these people there, whose daily lives I follow on Instagram. It is just so weird to be in the same room as them, even hanging around with the Scottish athletes was great.

“The thing I learned most was just to trust myself,” she added. “Trust that I had done enough on my foundations. And to enjoy it. Because after my hurdles it was just over so quickly, I wanted to appreciate the last six events. It is easy to get caught up in it all.”

Being able to rise to the occasion is certainly a good sign. “It was definitely good to see that the big occasion seemed to bring something out in me,” she said.” Especially in the high jump. There were quite a lot of Scottish people behind the high jump and they were all getting right behind me - that definitely helped.”

Having said all that, one barometer of how far McArthur still has to travel is the fact that she had triumphantly exited the high jump competition, PB and all, before Johnson-Thompson had even deigned to enter. It was Jessica Ennis-Hill rather than Johnson-Thompson who provided the inspiration for McArthur to devote herself to the multi-discipline event, but just being able to pick up a few hints and tips from the new indoor World Champion was priceless.

“When I had finished, KJT hadn’t even entered the competition!” recalled McArthur. “You could tell she was really experienced. She still had her trainers on, she hadn’t even changed into her spikes and just seemed so cool about things. The 200m was quite interesting, because she was in the lane inside me and when I came round the bend I kind of felt her whooshing right past.

“I didn’t speak to her too much but she did congratulate me when I got my high jump PB so that was really nice,” McArthur added. “But I guess she was really focused on her performance too. I was 12 when the London 2012 games was on, and Kat was just starting out. So it was more Jess Ennis for me but obviously now that I am competing against her, Kat is a big inspiration.”

While McArthur is too much of a home body to contemplate moving to France to base her career, as Johnson-Thompson has, she isn’t the only Scottish athlete who built so much to her Commonwealth Games participation that it has taken her a while to get going again. A two-week period of downtime, largely spent walking the dog and doing not very much in the house where she still lives with her parents, went by in a flash, and it was back to training last week. “My coach [Iain McEwan] texted me the Sunday night ‘so training tomorrow?’ and I couldn’t believe that was two weeks already,” she said.

While many of Scottish athletics fraternity re-set their goals for the European Championships in Berlin in August, McArthur has the possibility of competing for Great Britain at the World Junior Championships in Tampere, Finland, in July, assuming body and mind are strong enough for her to go down to Bedford and win the trials in a fortnight’s time. “What is next? Maybe the World Juniors, although I will need to see how my body feels,” she said.”There is a competition in Bedford which I need to win at the end of the month but I need to see how my training goes, because I did have a bit of a break. If not, I am looking forward to a good training block and get in a competition before the end of the season. Then there are the Euro Under-23s next year. It will be a big ask to make the team as heptathlon is very strong at the moment but I don’t’ see why I can’t set myself a goal.”