WHEN she closes her eyes and visualises the 2014 Commonwealth Games, Samantha Kinghorn imagines hearing her name called on the start-line as the partisan Scottish crowd at Hampden Park roars its approval.

"All those cold winter mornings and the hours of training - it will all be worth it when I get out there," she says. "It's going to be absolutely amazing. I'm hoping that when I'm in that tiring stage of the last lap I will be able to hear them cheering me all the way round. That will make me push that little bit harder."

One of the Sunday Herald's Six To Follow to Glasgow 2014, Kinghorn will represent Team Scotland in the T54 1500m on Tuesday, marking the culmination of an incredible journey for the 18-year-old wheelchair racer.

Kinghorn was 14 when she was crushed while helping her father clear snow on the family farm near the Berwickshire village of Gordon. Her back was broken in the accident and the teenager spent six months at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow after being told she would never walk again.

A former gymnast, Kinghorn went to watch the Inter Spinal Unit Games at Stoke Mandeville in 2011. She was captivated and chose to pursue a career in athletics because she "loved the speed". Kinghorn finished second in her debut in the 2012 London Mini Marathon and has since racked up an impressive list of accolades, including holding six Scottish records in the T53 class.

Joining Kinghorn in action in the T54 1500m will be fellow Team Scotland wheelchair racer Meggan Dawson-Farrell, the 21-year-old from Tullibody, Clackmannanshire. Both women share the same coach Ian Mirfin, the winner of the BBC Sports Unsung Hero award in 2011 for his work with Red Star Athletics Club in the east end of Glasgow.

Known as Sammi to her friends, Kinghorn has already had a test run of the Hampden track in June which she hopes will stand her in good stead. It is her belief that it is better to focus on her own preparations rather than speculate about which athletes may prove the biggest threat. "I'm trying not to look too much into who my rivals will be," she says. "Once I get through the heats and I've seen everyone's times I'll have a better idea of how everyone is doing and who are the ones to watch. You can look at the rankings but they might not show who is in form at this stage.

"My current PB over 1500m is 3:36 so it's come down a lot. Right at the start of the year it was 4:10 so it's a big jump. I feel my form is coming together well and hopefully should be right for me to peak when I need to."

While she will compete in the T54 1500m, Kinghorn's own para-sport classification is T53 placing her at a disadvantage to many of her competitors. "It means my aerobic capacity isn't as great so when I tire I start folding because I have no abdominals to keep me upright," she says. "They have more power too because they are able to use their abdominal muscles to lift themselves up."

There will be a close to 25-strong contingent of family and friends at Hampden including her parents, Elaine and Neill, and Kinghorn's boyfriend Connor there to cheer her on. They have threatened to make T-shirts and banners, she says, sounding two parts delighted, one part embarrassed by how this may unfold.

Away from athletics, Kinghorn is an all-round action girl who still helps her father out with lambing each spring and has tried her hand at everything from rally driving to diving with sharks. Kinghorn recently filmed an episode of CBeebies children's series Nina and the Neurons which is scheduled to be shown today to coincide with the Common-wealth Games marathon taking place through the streets of Glasgow.

"I love doing things like that," she says. "All the kids were so excited when they saw my chair. It was cool."

Having been in a Team Scotland holding camp in Irvine, North Ayrshire, since last Monday, Kinghorn is due to enter the Athletes' Village today.

"My coach Ian's advice has been to relax and not overthink things," she says. "I think it will all start to feel a lot more real being in the village. That's when we will begin to talk about things like tactics. It's good to keep my routine going and we'll carry that right through to the Games because if we start changing things now, that's when I'll get nervous."