IT is, jokes Colin Gregor, quite a career change for a man who made his name "chasing a rugby ball around a field". The 35-year-old former Glasgow Warrior, the most capped player in the history of Scotland Rugby Sevens and the captain of the Scotland team at Glasgow 2014, is now charged with chaperoning 41 of Scotland's brightest sporting teenagers to the Caribbean. It is only 50 days until the Commonwealth Youth Games get under way at Nassau, in the Bahamas, and making sure all maximise their potential and get a positive first taste of a multi sport environment isn't as simple as making sure to pack the Factor 50.
It would be remiss, though, to have Gregor here and not touch first on a topic which threatens the very viability of the Scotland sevens team which he has been synonymous with for more than a decade. Just two years after a threat from within the Scottish Rugby Union to disband the Sevens team was thwarted, news broke last week of a possible merger between the teams of Scotland, England and Wales for World Series events from 2018-19 onwards. Let's just say Gregor isn't enamoured the idea.
"I don't think it is a good way to go for Scottish rugby to be honest," said Gregor. "I think the development which sevens has provided over the years has been massive and I think it is continuing to do that. Obviously Scotland would then be part of a merged British team, but at Commonwealth Games and World Cups they would be going back in as Scotland. It might be feasible but we wouldn't be competitive, I don't think. Time would tell but I don't think it is a positive move for Scotland's sevens or the longevity of it.
"Our sevens operates very much on a shoestring at the moment and going to GB would be a way [for the SRU] to reduce that further," he added. "But I think depriving players the opportunity to represent Scotland at any level is not the way to go, even though it might make the Commonwealth Games even more important because it is an opportunity to go back to wearing the Thistle on your chest."
Many of these teenagers will get their first real taste of that in the Bahamas. Scotland competed in rugby sevens at the 2011 youth games in the Isle of Man - the likes of Sam Hidalgo-Clyne and Adam Ashe featured in a side which fell just short of a medal - and the shortened form of the sport is also on the roster in the Bahamas, albeit with Scotland not making the cut as just one team from each continent is invited. The 41 athletes are sprinkled across seven of the nine sports on the event programme - athletics, beach volleyball, boxing, cycling, judo, swimming and tennis - each hoping to emulate Glasgow 2014 heroes like Charlie Flynn, Josh Taylor, Daniel Keatings, Hannah Miley or Lynsey Sharp, who used their participation in the youth games as a springboard to a Commonwealth Games medal. A handful of competitors from the 2015 version of this event in Samoa - where the likes of boxers John Docherty and Sean Lazzerini helped a 28-strong Scottish team return with a haul of 21 medals - already have designs on making the cut for the Gold Coast next April.
Some names will announce themselves in the Bahamas; some are already gaining currency. Megan Gordon, from Rothes in the Highlands, will become the first female boxer to compete for Scotland at any Commonwealth Games event, with her fellow pugilists Sam Hickey and Lewis Johnstone both European Junior medalists. Erin Wallace - who set a new British Under-17 indoor 800m record last year - and Olivia Vareille - the daughter of former Kilmarnock striker Jerome - are making great strides in athletics. Judo, omitted from the Gold Coast roster, makes its debut in this event, with Paisley's Luis Saez regarded as one to watch. In tennis Alexandra Hunter and Hamish Stewart will hope to emulate the achievements of Ewen Lumsden and Louie McLelland, who both returned from Samoa with medals in their hand luggage.
"The first challenge will be the humidity," said Gregor. "The bohemian culture too, it is fairly laid back out there, so they have talked about the transport system being every half hour from the games village to the venue but whether it is going to be quite as smooth as that when we get there I will wait and see. There are a couple of catering issues we need to look at. But again it is about being aware of everything that might happen and being aware of the solutions.
"Obviously you want them to succeed because they are all competitive individuals but we have to look at a slightly bigger picture as well, the experience they get from these international multi-sport events," he added. "For many of these athletes, it has all been about their own sport, competing well in their own little silos. I am sure many of these athletes will have memories of Glasgow 2014 and just how special these events are. It is about them getting a taste for it at this smaller level and then you hope they really commit to this."
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