Commonwealth champion Ross Murdoch is swapping the pool for the police following his graduation from the University of Stirling, but says he “still dreams about swimming” every night.
The university gave his career in the pool a springboard after he joined in 2012 as part of the high performance swim programme.
Murdoch graduated on Friday with a masters degree in sport management, and is now set to begin a career in policing – though may also return to the pool.
He announced he was retiring from swimming last December – but returned for the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham this year, winning three bronze medals.
He has refused to rule out another return to the pool and said he could consider competing at the Commonwealth Games in 2026.
READ MORE: Meet the University of Stirling boss clocking up 100 games a year
He said: “A Commonwealth Games is a massive thing. It really does feel like a family – that feeling of swimming for Scotland, there’s just nothing else like it.”
The university supported Murdoch as he competed at two Olympics and three Commonwealth Games.
“I’ve not officially retired but I haven’t been training in the pool for several weeks,” he added.
“For me, if I still feel this type of fire in eight or nine months, I could consider the possibility of another Commonwealth Games.
“But training for a Games is a difficult job and I need to wait and see with everything else – and whether it balances with my life after sport.
“For me, swimming for Scotland was the biggest thing.
“It was always my main dream and I’ve gone on to compete at two Olympic Games, three Commonwealth Games, and numerous World and European Championships.
“I’m so proud of myself that I’ve managed to achieve that.”
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 here