SCOTLAND'S athletes have been tipped to deliver their biggest Commonwealth Games medal haul since the heyday of Liz McColgan and Yvonne Murray in 1990.
Stephen Maguire, the soon-to-depart head coach of Scotland's athletics team, believes the 2014 hosts are on target for more than two track-and-field medals this fortnight, a tally which would outstrip any Scottish effort in the last five games.
The likes of Eilidh Child in the 400m hurdles, Lynsey Sharp in the 800m, and Laura Muir in the 1500m are the best bets to follow in the footsteps of the McColgan and Murray-inspired team which won five medals in Auckland 14 years ago.
"That would be a sign of real progress and I think we can do that, although I don't want to put pressure on any individual athlete," said Maguire, who has accepted a job at British Athletics. "We've a group of very talented athletes now and they're hitting performances at just the right moment.
"The athletics here is world class," added the Irishman, who takes a 58-strong team to the event. "I've never been involved in a Commonwealths before, but I've been involved in Olympics - and I don't see any difference.
"In fact, the standard of this Games will probably redefine what the Commonwealth Games can be. But I'm a great believer in momentum, so I think we can get off and running with some good early performances."
Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, meanwhile, is confident there will be three Englishmen in the 100 metres final at the Commonwealth Games - and all will have a medal chance.
The absence of Usain Bolt - the world's fastest man is only competing in the relay in Glasgow - will make for a more open field in the blue riband event at Hampden Park and Aikines-Aryeetey believes he and team-mates Adam Gemili and Richard Kilty can challenge for the podium.
The 25-year-old from Carshalton is in the form of his career, running a personal best 10.08 seconds last month, while Gemili has run 10.04 secs, also a PB, and Kilty has championship pedigree as the world indoor champion.
"I'd like to say that we're going to have three men in the final. Myself, Richard Kilty and Adam are definitely good enough to be in that final and good enough to mix it with the best," said Aikines-Aryeetey.
The heats of the 100m take place on Sunday, with the semi-finals and final coming the following evening.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article