When Josh Armstrong returned to Glasgow Academy to begin his sixth year last month his outlook was transformed.

The 17-year-old had every reason to feel that way because just days before going back he and school-mate Gavin Horsburgh had become world champions as part of the Great Britain quad contesting the World Junior Rowing Championships over the Olympic course in Rio de Janeiro.

It was, he believes, a life changing moment because it helped him realise what he could be capable of doing.

“It was a big turning point in my rowing because it gave me the knowledge to push myself that hard. I’d never been to that level before. I’d been just sub-maximal prior to that,” he explained.

His own feeling about what he now has the capacity to achieve has already been confirmed by those in the know.

“I’ve still got another year of juniors next year so I’ll be hoping to win another gold, then from that 2020 the Olympics in Tokyo is a realistic goal. I’ve been told that by the director of GB rowing so I’ll definitely be going for that,” said Armstrong.

His success is all the more remarkable because until as recently as 2013 his sporting ambitions centred upon a very different type of vehicle.

The son of a motor sports enthusiast he had been making considerable strides in the world of karting before shooting up in height which is ideal for rowing but was no use for squeezing himself into a go-kart.

“I just came to a time when I got too big for it and too heavy because of the weight you have to be. I was over that and it was a disadvantage. So I was around 15 when I stopped karting, having started when I was around 11 or 12,” he said

“I was stuck for a sport to choose after that, so I had a look around on the internet to see what would suit my size and I stumbled upon rowing.”

His decision could not have been better because it is a sport in which Glasgow Academy was beginning to develop a reputation.

“I was looking around and I didn’t know too much about the school programme at that point in time so I started off at a local club and enjoyed it, then joined the school club,” said Armstrong.

His success, along with Horsburgh’s is, then, the latest evidence of some outstanding work being done within the school.

“The school programme’s been running since around 2007 and we’ve had some success with Scottish teams and a couple of internationals,” Armstrong pointed out.

“Gavin and I were the first people to make a World Championship team which was a good achievement for the school.”

For one man in particular because the existence of that programme is largely down to the work of Iain Somerside, a parent who has been the driving force behind it since it was set up just eight years ago.

He brought the idea to the PE department which in turn recommended it to the senior management and it started at Easter 2007 with a couple of machines.

The rate of progress has been stunning which is largely down to Somerside’s own commitment and hunger for knowledge in particular on the mental side of sports development which, he acknowledges, is partly down to an understanding of what held him back during his own competitive career. That, in turn, has helped generate an intensity within the programme that draws upon study of many elite coaches and managers.

A former physics lab has now been converted into a rowing room with three banks of machines, pupils greeted as they walk in with the white-boarded message “Does it make the boat go faster?” a challenge to them to ensure that every lifestyle decision they make in terms of such things as diet or how they spend their social time, should be informed by what ambition they have to excel.

More than 100 boys and girls – Alex Rankin, another of their pupils, also went to the World Championships in Rio with the GB team –now regularly take part and their quad, which included Armstrong and Horsburgh, caused more than a few ripples at the prestigious Henley School Championships this year by setting a new course record.

The rapidity of that growth has the potential to have much wider repercussions however, because a programme set up and sustained by the imagination and energy of one parent, could serve as an example of best practice for all schools.

As Malcolm McNaught, the academy’s director of external communications, pointed out when inviting HeraldSport to examine their success, rowing may have the image of association with private schools but it was not a sport Glasgow Academy has traditionally been involved with. Nor is it dependent on a tradition of having the necessary infrastructure in place to create the skills and drills regimes that can create competitive rugby and cricket teams.

“Is it because we're a wealthy school - or is it more to do with healthy competition and encouraging hard work?” was his very genuine question.

Given that most schools have access to rowing machines that in effect, represents a constructive challenge to others, particularly in the state sector and Somerside says their doors are open to anyone keen to learn from what they are doing.

What Josh Armstrong has achieved in little more than two years would seem to demonstrate far more in the way of sporting potential than just his own.