IT IS not quite how the story was meant to unfold.
Amy Regan should have been stepping out to bid for a fifth consecutive all-around title at the Scottish National Gymnastics Championships on Saturday. Instead the 19-year-old will be watching from the sidelines at Bell's Sport Centre in Perth, her leg in heavy strapping following a fall from the asymmetric bars in training last Friday.
In what her coach Sandy Richardson described as a "freak accident", Regan lost her grip on the high bar while performing a simple handstand move. She missed the matting and landed on the floor, her left foot and ankle taking the brunt of the impact. While X-rays have indicated there are no fractures, doctors have yet to determine the full extent of any ligament damage and bruising to the bone. It is hoped the injury will not have any impact on Regan's Commonwealth Games ambitions.
Only hours beforehand, in a quiet room off the main gym at Bellahouston in Glasgow, Regan had been chatting happily about her preparations for this weekend. She felt excited, nervous, focused and ready.
"I'm in a lucky position having already gained the Commonwealth Games qualification standards for the all-around, vault, beam and floor," she said. "The only one I don't have is bars. It's getting stronger. I have a few new moves to add in which should hopefully help up my score.
"I'm close to the qualification standard so it's a case of making a few tweaks and neatening everything up to minimise deductions. It's about whether you risk putting those new moves in now and potentially take a fall, which could affect qualification scores, or do it for the competition experience so you have that before the Games this summer."
In a sport where participants regularly perform gravity-defying manoeuvres on a beam less than four inches wide and launch themselves at a solid vaulting table with eye-watering ferocity, the margin for error is miniscule.
It is something Regan knows only too well. Warming up for the vault final at the British Championships three years ago, the Giffnock-based gymnast landed awkwardly, chipping a bone in her ankle. She also missed the Scottish Championships in 2009 with a torn hamstring. Over the years, war wounds and kaleidoscopic bruises have become par for the course but, equally, Regan has proved herself to be adept at dusting herself down and getting on with things. Testament to her determination, she was back doing light training on Tuesday evening, only four days after her fall.
Given the circumstances, Regan could be forgiven for being downbeat but, if anything, the setback has only added fuel to the fire. "It's just a minor bump in the road," she said. "Of course I'm gutted not to be able to defend my title at the Scottish Championships but I have to focus on staying positive and recovering."
It appears unlikely that Regan, who competes for City of Glasgow, will be back in action for the English Championships on March 14 - she has a guest spot - and the British Championships in Liverpool a fortnight later now seem a more realistic goal. Those plans, much like her ankle, may need to be put on ice, depending on her progress.
Regan started in gymnastics as a three-year-old after tagging along to classes with her older sister Shona, who now assists alongside her main coach Richardson. She has steadily built a reputation as one of Scotland's most successful gymnasts, a scenario that not even she could have imagined in the early days of her sporting career.
"When I was younger I wasn't very good," she laughs. "I would always come last in competitions and if you asked people back then I don't think anyone would have said they would have considered me as a contender for the Commonwealth Games."
Regan attributes her rise to a combination of tenacity and sheer grit. "I'm definitely a grafter and not scared of hard work," she said. "Usually, it's the coach telling the gymnast when to be at training, but instead it's me saying to Sandy: 'I need to be in at this time' because I want to be in the gym."
Regan made her Commonwealth Games debut in Delhi in 2010, finishing fourth on floor. A photograph of her features on the official Glasgow 2014 website, with her target this summer being to gain medals on her two strongest pieces: floor and vault.
Even so, she remains reticent about getting too far ahead of herself until her Team Scotland place is confirmed. "I've been trying not to think about things like going into the athletes' village or what it will feel like to compete in Glasgow," she said. "I don't want to get carried away in case for some reason I don't make the team."
Her voice cracks, the emotion palpable when asked if she has envisaged that possibility. "I try not to let myself think about it," she said. "I got my mum to buy me a Commonwealth Games ticket but while I would love to be there supporting everyone, if I don't make the team I think it would probably be too hard."
To hone her focus, Regan likes to think about the Glasgow 2014 countdown clock. "It feels like this has been something we've all talked about for years but was always way off in the future," she says. "Now there's only a few months left to go. I don't want to have any regrets. Every day in my head I picture that clock ticking down."
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