‘No Scotland, No Party’ has been blaring out from John O’Groats to the Mull of Galloway all summer long.
At the Commonwealth Games, ‘No Scott, No Party’ rings just as true.
In the same pool in which he made his Commonwealth debut as a fresh-faced 17-year-old, Duncan Scott came full circle.
He romped to a dominant victory in the 200m individual medley final to kick-start the medal rush and provide a crucial moment for these under-fire Games.
Glasgow only swooped in to pick up the Commonwealths after the Australian state of Victoria pulled out, but promised a stripped-back version with almost half the number of sports as before, while the BBC losing the rights to TNT Sports has cost it crucial eyeballs.
It has hardly made for a positive build-up but once the sport starts, the negativity tends to stop and Scott provided a mood-shifting moment at a raucous Tollcross swimming pool.
“I’m glad, and it’s more relief than anything else,” he said.
“You really want to get the team off to a good start and build some momentum early doors.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s a really good performance or a really bad one – something I’ve always done quite well at a lot of major meets is evaluate it at the end of the week.
“Reflecting back, sometimes I maybe haven’t taken the highs as well as I should have, but it means that I can be really good when it comes to days six, seven and eight of competition.
“This is one I’ll savour and think about once the meet is over.
“Hopefully [this can be a springboard for Team Scotland] and the start of things to come.”
Scott’s win marked Scotland’s first medal of the Games and his fourth Commonwealth gold overall, moving him to within one of bowler Alex ‘Tattie’ Marshall, who has the national record.
He already has the most medals overall and this takes his tally to 14, with the promise of more to come based on this evidence.
Racing against training partner and old foe Tom Dean, Scott was in a class of his own.
He touched the wall in a Commonwealth record of 1:56.38, while Dean was pipped to silver by Australia’s Lewis Clareburt.
Dean famously beat Scott to Olympic 200m freestyle gold in Tokyo five years ago but a shoulder injury has derailed his season and he was unable to live with the pace.
“I love it,” Dean said.
“I’ve raced Duncan my whole adult career. We stood on the podium together at this event four years ago, so to stand next to him again and walk out with him in front of his home crowd is something I’ll never forget.
“I’m fortunate enough to call him not only a training partner but also a friend.”
There was double gold for Scotland, as Faye Rogers followed Scott onto the top step of the podium in the women’s 200m medley SM10 final.
The University of Aberdeen student trailed Australia’s Jasmine Greenwood at the half-way stage but came roaring back to add a Commonwealth gold to the Paralympic gold from 2024.
The 23-year-old competed at the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Selection trials, however later that year the 19-year-old was involved in a car accident which resulted in permanent damage to her right arm.
“It means a lot on a personal level but its also really cool to show other girls with disabilities that it does not have to hold you back,” Rogers said.
Katie Shanahan almost made it a hat-trick but she missed out on gold in the 200m backstroke final by less than half a second.
Australia’s Jenna Forrester just about held off the 22-year-old in the final 15 metres, while Shanahan’s Scottish teammate Holly McGill missed out on a medal by 0.12s.
Elsewhere, the first morning of the Games descended into chaos when a volunteer stripped off and jumped into the pool to fix a broken lane rope.
The man dived head-first to the bottom to retrieve a dislodged anchor fix after the rope dividing lanes six and seven split from the wall.
Red-faced organisers had spent more than five minutes trying to fish out the small piece of metal with a large net.
The incident delayed Adam Ramsay-Peaty’s 100m breaststroke heat, with the Olympic legend stood awkwardly by the starting blocks for an extra 15 minutes.
“It doesn’t help, does it? But that happens in sport,” he said after winning.
“In any sport, stuff goes wrong. It doesn’t help losing all the heat [in your muscles] when you’re preparing.”
Ramsay-Peaty won comfortably and then qualified fastest for Saturday’s final, beating rising star Filip Nowacki to the line.
Ramsay-Peaty is the favourite to reclaim the Commonwealth title in the same pool where his career took off 12 years ago but faces stiff competition from the 18-year-old – who has a fine chance of winning Jersey’s first Commonwealth medal since 1990.
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