ON the opening day of the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, a nine-year-old boy watched awestruck as Dick Tayler won 10,000m gold.

As the partisan New Zealand crowd erupted in rapture around the stadium at Queen Elizabeth II Park, for a young Jon Doig looking on from the stands with his father and younger sister, this was more than simply an exhilarating spectacle: it was a pivotal moment that would shape his future path.

Next summer will mark Doig's second Commonwealth Games as Team Scotland Chef de Mission, having previously held the role in Delhi in 2010. He was assistant general team manager in 1998 and 2002, then general team manager in 2006. He has been chief executive of Commonwealth Games Scotland since 2001.

"The fact my sister went on to swim in the 1984 Olympics and 
I ended up here as Chef de Mission working on the Commonwealth Games shows how much impact it had," he said. "We were just two ordinary kids who were inspired by what we saw."

As the guiding hand behind the Scottish team, Doig hopes that our own home nation will be similarly enthused by the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Already public expectation is beginning to build in anticipation of a raft of medal-winning performances. Scotland's previous biggest haul was in Edinburgh in 1986 – when the boycott undoubtedly brought increased opportunities – comprising 33 medals: three gold, 12 silver and 18 bronze.

While Doig is reticent to be drawn on exact projections, he is confident of surpassing that tally. "The hope is to have our best ever Games, which would be more than those 33 medals," he said. "When you look at it from a gold medal perspective, it would be more than the 11 we got in Melbourne in 2006. Exactly where those medals will come from? That is something we are working on with each sport currently."

The objective, he said, is that all 17 sports will be represented by a minimum of three Scottish athletes, with Doig reiterating that no-one would be selected "simply to wear the tracksuit and wave at the crowd".

"It's a policy that has served us well in previous Commonwealth Games," he said. "It means everyone can look around at their counterparts and know they deserve to be there."

Since the qualification period opened in April, Scottish performances meeting the Glasgow 2014 standards have already come in sports including athletics, badminton, lawn bowls, shooting, squash, table tennis, weightlifting and wrestling.

While one might fear that could pose a potential selection headache come next June, Doig disagrees. "What it means is we will have more athletes of the standard we want," he said. "We have been really heartened by the number, not only making the standards, but trying to get themselves into the medal zones. It's not simply about being satisfied to make the team, it's about what they want to achieve beyond that. Certainly, the attitude of the athletes we have spoken to, they see selection as being only the first step."

Doig, 49, comes from a family of sporting high achievers: his mother, Marie, played hockey for New Zealand, sister Anna swam in the 1984 Olympics and brother Peter in the 1990 Commonwealth Games. He himself was a competitive swimmer and water polo player at university level.

Originally from Paraparaumu on New Zealand's North Island, he has called Scotland home for 19 years, settling here with wife Kerstin and their three young sons. While asking who Doig would support if his adopted country and the All Blacks ended up going head-to-head in the rugby sevens prompts a hearty chuckle, his response is sanguine.

"It would be Scotland," he said. "I know what a huge thing it would be for Scottish rugby to beat the All Blacks. I've made my home in Scotland, my family is here and I have that personal contact with many of the athletes within that team. But if New Zealand were playing anyone else aside from Scotland? I would be behind them."

Doig is looking forward to seeing how the Scottish fairytale unfolds next summer. He describes the "stuff of goosebumps" as being like what happened in Melbourne in 2006 when Caitlin McClatchey and David Carry both claimed gold on the opening day of competition in the pool. "Looking around at the Australians, they were dumbstruck as to what had happened," he said.

"Walking into the stadium for an opening ceremony is always special too," he added. "The emotion running through you is so powerful. It's an experience you can't buy – it sends shivers up the spine."

One of the best parts of his job is the privilege of being able to share a little bit of an athlete's journey. That includes seeing athletes emerge from the proverbial chrysalis as caterpillars to become butterflies. "While many will have been on the team in the past, one of the nicest things is seeing those who perhaps haven't been on the radar before," he said. "If you think of someone like Michael Jamieson, who came onto the team in Delhi quite late but responded well by winning a silver medal, three years later he's a household name. The Commonwealth Games has that ability to transform people's lives, not least for the sports that perhaps don't get the same coverage week-in, week-out."