Libby Clegg, the Paralympic Games hopeful, has urged sports officials to do more to help Scotland's leading athletes or risk an ever-greater exodus over the border.
The Beijing silver medallist has called for greater efforts to develop more disabled sporting icons within the current system.
The 21-year-old, who is registered blind, quit her base at Edinburgh's Meadowbank Stadium two years ago in frustration at the lack of top-class support available on-site. She now trains along side a number of leading Olympic prospects at UK Athletics' centre of excellence in Loughborough, where the facilities including indoor and outdoor tracks as well as sports science and medical teams.
There was, admits Clegg, no option but to relocate to maximise her chances at this summer's games in London. Scotland, she declared, must improve its own options if future generations are to be nurtured.
"If they had a high-performance centre like Loughborough and Lee Valley, it would be better for the athletes," she said. "In Loughborough everyone knows everyone, whether you're an elite podium athlete, right down to the non-funded athletes.
"They're around one other all the time, whereas when I was training in Edinburgh I had a fantastic group, but I didn't get to meet or get involved with any of the other high-performance athletes."
Clegg, who took 100 metres silver in Beijing in 2008, claimed the world title at the same distance last year but will target a sprint double in London. However, she admits to concerns about the potential lack of Scottish representation in the British Paralympic team.
Last year, a total of £553,325 was provided in funding to Scottish Disability Sport, an umbrella organisation that co-ordinates coaching and support. More can and must be done, she insists, to develop genuine elite performers.
"There's something missing," Clegg claimed. "I don't know where it's going wrong. I don't know how well paralympic athletes are encouraged in Scotland but there do seem to be more coming through in England. There seems to be more of a support network there.
"Scottish Disability Sport has done a good job of bringing athletes through, but we need more."
The Borders-raised sprinter has garnered extra backing from property agency ESPC, which will aid her quest for gold in August.
"It's exciting having a home games, especially when the Paralympics will have more profile," she said. "But the pressure has started already."
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