JON Doig, the chief executive of Commonwealth Games Scotland, has predicted that Scotland are on course to return home from the Gold Coast next April with their greatest ever medal haul from an overseas games.
While it may be asking too much for them to replicate the achievement of Team GB at last year's Olympics in Rio - they actually increased their tally from London from 67 medals to 69 - Team Scotland have been told to forget about the 53 medals, 19 of them gold, which they earned at Glasgow 2014 and tasked with simply improving upon the 29 medals gained in Melbourne in 2006 from an almost identical programme of sports.
Doig feels this is a realistic target, and a good barometer of our sporting progress as a nation, even despite the challenges of competing on the other side of the globe at a point in the calendar when many of our athletes do not usually compete.
While the final selection will not be known until late in the year, Scotland will run with a significantly smaller team, with qualification standards pitched at a level where every team member is expected to be in contention for a top six finish in their chosen event.
"Things are on track at the moment," said Doig. "The selection process opened on January 1 and we have already got a number of athletes hitting those targets and standards. Selection will take place later on in the year but we are confident we will have a very competitive team again. We have set our standards at the top 6 level for team members, that is the standard that is in place. Obviously come October when the first team members start to be named, we will be confident that they can go out there and deliver.
"The planning for each games always starts before the next one comes up and we are well aware that we are back into the cycle for an overseas games and there are different pressures between a home games and an overseas games," he added. "The athletes' mindsets are different. They are well aware of where they are going and whose backyard they are in. At the Olympics in Rio they [Team GB] did that very well.
"Our best ever overseas games was in Melbourne in 2006 and interestingly the programme is almost exactly the same - we have basketball in instead of judo, quite a different make-up from Glasgow 2014. But if we look back at 2006 that gives us a benchmark. The swimmers did incredibly well there, they got us off to a great start. It always helps when you do well in day one, two, three and everyone gets a momentum on the back of that."
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