As the baby of the family, Seonaid McIntosh has always been trying to catch up with her mum, Shirley and her older sister, Jen, who are two of the most decorated athletes in Scottish Commonwealth Games history.

There are now less than six months until the Opening Ceremony of the 2018 Commonwealth Games and McIntosh admits that her mind is starting to wander towards thoughts of closing the gap in terms of medal count.

The Commonwealth Shooting Championships, which begin today in Brisbane, Australia, double-up as a test event for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, which kick-off at the start of April next year, and the 21 year-old knows that competing at the venue which will host the Commonwealth Games will make the proximity of the Games feel very real.

“It’s a test event for the organisers but it’s also a test event for us too,” she said. “It makes me feel like Gold Coast is getting really close now.

“I’m almost half-way through my first semester at university and the Games are at the end of next semester so it’s pretty scary quite how close it is.”

With this week’s event coming before McIntosh has got into full flow of her season, she admits that her expectations are relatively low and her goals for the week are as much to try out different strategies to deal with the heat, the conditions and the jet-lag which all come hand-in-hand with competing in Australia as much as getting on the podium.

However, the form that the Heriot Watt electrical engineering student has shown in 2017 has resulted in her going into every competition with elevated expectations now.

The most notable result for the Edinburgh shooter this year has been her remarkable performance at the European Championships in July, where she won gold for the first time, taking the 50m rifle 3 positions title, as well as being a part of the team which won the 50m rifle 3 positions team event.

It is a result that McIntosh admits still has not quite sunk in, despite the fact that she sees her gold medals every morning and night. “My entire season went really well and to finish on a high with the Europeans was amazing,” she said. “It’s so cool to be able to call myself European champion.

“It didn’t sink in for ages but I’ve got the medals hanging up in my room and I can see them when I’m lying in my bed so it’s pretty nice to wake up and see them and remember that I’m European champion.”

The by-product of McIntosh’s success is that she is now looking towards the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games with much greater belief, something that can be, she admits, both a blessing and a curse.

“The Europeans has, I think, increased my expectations for Gold Coast next year – now I’m starting to think, ‘oh my goodness, I could win!’”, she said.

“I’m trying to reign myself back in and remind myself to focus on the process rather than the outcome though.

“It’s easier said than done to put it out my head but I’m really trying to- when I’m really busy, it’s fine, I hardly think about it but then I’ll go to bed at night and it’ll start to come into my head and so I have to remind myself to calm down.”

McIntosh has some way to go before she gets anywhere close the medal tally of her mum and her sister, who have won four and five medals respectively, but after leaving Glasgow 2014 empty-handed, she knows that racking up Commonwealth Games medals is no easy feat.

“I’m in really good form and so I do start to wonder if I could begin to catch up with them,” she reveals. “I don’t really feel pressure from other people but I do put it on myself – I want to be like my mum and like Jen and so I put pressure on myself to do that.

“My mum and Jen won medals at their first Commonwealth Games and that made it sound like it should be easy to do so well so when I didn’t do well, it was a real disappointment.

“So it’s really good that I’m going to have another opportunity to hopefully do better.”

However, McIntosh’s father, Donald, who is also her coach, also represented Scotland at the Commonwealth Games but could never managed to grab a spot on the podium himself, something that helped McIntosh put things into perspective after Glasgow 2014.

“After Glasgow , I’d be sitting with the family and thinking oh no, what if I’m the only one who does badly. But the good thing is that my dad went to the 2002 Commonwealth Games but didn’t do particularly well - he didn’t do terrible but he doesn’t have any medals – so he understands what it was like for me last time coming away without any medals.”

The rivalry between McIntosh and her older sister is almost palpable but it is, believes McIntosh, a hugely positive thing for both of them, although she admits that she would never be quite so generous as give away the win for the sake of family relations.

“There is a rivalry, but it’s a supportive rivalry so it’s good,” she said. “She said something in a recent interview that me beating her upsets the natural order of things.

“So I think that she’s happy that I’m doing well and she wants me to be successful but she’s also a bit like ‘where did this little upstart from?!’

“But it’s great for me to have her there and for me to be able to ask her any questions I have – I love having family around me when I’m competing because they know what I’m like and they know without asking if I’m nervous or if I need a hug or anything.

“I’d love us to both be able to win but that’s obviously not possible so from my point of view, I’d love to be the one who wins but we end up first and second.”