For many of Scotland’s athletes who get their hands on Commonwealth Games silverware, it’s the pinnacle of their career.

For Malin Wilson, who won bronze at Birmingham 2022 last summer, it was, she is certain, just the beginning.

Wilson has long been touted as one of Scotland’s most promising judo talents. But now, at the age of 28, she’s confident she’s edging closer to becoming the fighter she has long believed she could be.

Her Commonwealth Games medal came on the back of a lengthy lay-off caused by rupturing her ACL and so she was, she believes, far from her best last year.

Which is why her medal success has done wonders for her confidence as this season gets into full swing.

“I definitely feel like my Commy Games medal was just the start for me,” the -57kgs fighter says.

“In judo, it’s the Olympics, World Champs, European Champs and Grand Slams that you get the big ranking points [for], but as a Scottish athlete, the Commonwealth Games is one of the biggest events, even though the ranking points aren’t there. So, for me, coming back from injury, winning that medal was very meaningful.

“Birmingham was only my second event back after seven and a half months out, which is a long time.

“I decided that if I was at the Games, it was because my knee was fine and so I had to take that out of the equation, mentally. But I also knew I wasn’t at 100 per cent. I had probably 60 per cent of my judo so I had to be realistic and really, my only goal once I was there was to get a medal.

“Winning that bronze felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders. Even though I’m still nowhere near where I want to be, it has given me confidence that the foundations are there to build upon.”

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This weekend, Wilson, who hails from Ullapool but is now based in Madrid, will take another significant step forward in her career when she competes in her first-ever Grand Slam tournament, the top tier of judo events.

She will fight in the Tashkent Grand Slam in Uzbekistan buoyed by the fact she is starting to reap the rewards of a month-long training camp in Japan at the end of 2022.

Such was her commitment to improving as a judoka, Wilson spent Christmas and New Year in the Far East and with Japan the home of judo and boasting a number of the world’s very best players, the training was invaluable for the Scot.

And such was the intensity of some of the sessions, Wilson returned home safe in the knowledge that if she could survive that training camp, she could survive anything.

“I’ve been to Japan quite a few times before but this was the first time I’d been by myself. It was brutal but it was so good at the same time,” she says. “There were eight days where I’d never experienced anything so difficult, training-wise, in my entire life. I was training with high school boys and anyone in the judo world knows how tough it is training with high school boys in Japan.

“Even the Scottish boys who go there come out almost crying. It’s so tough. It was four hours non-stop in the morning, two hours break then another four hours so it was really, really hard. But I’m feeling the benefits. No one can make me feel as bad as I felt during those days and so now, it does feel like anything is manageable. Now I have this feeling that I might win or I might lose but I don’t think anything can break me. And so heading into Tashkent, I feel like there’s no reason why things won’t go well.”

With Wilson’s step up to the top level of judo events comes the incentive of increased world ranking points which could come in very handy as she pursues her ultimate goal; the Olympic Games.

As current British champion, Wilson knows Olympic selection is within her capabilities but she must improve her current world ranking of 125 if she is to book her seat on the flight to Paris next summer.

With 16 months until the Olympics begin, there remains plenty of time for Wilson to force her way up the rankings but already, she is making sure she cannot forget what she’s working towards.

“There’s a lot of different criteria you need to meet so making the team isn’t straightforward. But getting to the Olympics is 100 percent, my target,” she says.

“I think about it all the time. My phone cover, the background on my iPad and in my club, above the treadmill we’ve got the Olympic rings so I’m constantly reminded of it. It’s my ultimate goal, no question.”