MARC Austin reckons this August’s multi-sports European Championships in Glasgow will bring out the best in Scotland’s athletes in much the same way as the Commonwealth Games does. It is now 50 days and counting until this ground-breaking event gets under way and Gold Coast triathlon hero Austin feels it suits the national psyche to muck in on a team basis rather than have to go it alone.
“It definitely helps,” said Austin, who took bronze ahead of both Brownlee brothers in the Gold Coast. “It is actually less pressure because you see that it is not just you. When you go to a triathlon, the whole weekend is revolving around your race, whereas with these kind of things you get a medal and then an hour later someone else has one and you’re just kind of forgotten about. So yeah it’s nice when you feel part of something a bit bigger, like there is more to life than just you and your triathlon career.”
Austin’s run provided Scotland’s first medal in the Gold Coast. But, aside from the odd nod of acknowledgement as he does his daily swimming training at Scotstoun Leisure Centre, his life doesn’t seem to have changed too much. “Sometimes when I’m swimming my lengths at Scotstoun people will be like ‘aww well done, I watched your race and stuff’ – which is nice. But they’re usually fellow swimmers, triathletes so they’re in the bubble anyway. I got a tweet off Nicola Sturgeon which was pretty funny, that is probably as wild as it got.”
English 400m runner Martyn Rooney, meanwhile, has called for dopers to be threatened with the prospect of jail time in the battle against the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport. Rooney, who had to wait nine years to receive his 2008 Beijing Olympic medal, is part of a new athletics agency which is geared around clean sport.
“Fraud is fraud,” he said. “If you’ve cheated, you’ve taken performances away from other people then it’s just the same as stealing isn’t it. Jail time, I would never be against that, it’s strict and it kind of makes it serious to some people. Like some people take a four year ban but if you rupture your Achilles that could be your career over. I think it needs to be aggressive, it needs to be really something that kids can go look it’s not worth it.”
Rooney, who suffered the misfortune of travelling to Australia only to not get the opportunity to compete in the 4x400m relay final, is a former 400m European Champion who reckons Scots will have a huge role to play in teh athletics Euros, which take place in Berlin.
“It’s brilliant that Scottish athletes are doing so well,” said Rooney. “Obviously they had a great Commonwealths and there are some fantastic performances but now I think when you’ve got people like Laura Muir leading the way, she is pretty much the star of British athletics at the moment.”
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