It’s hardly surprising that Amy Costello broke down in tears when she read the email revealing she’d made the cut for GB’s women’s hockey team for Paris 2024.

After all, the 26-year-old from Edinburgh had very different emotions three years ago when she was left out of the 16-player squad for Tokyo 2020, instead being selected only as a travelling reserve.

Her status meant she was in Tokyo for the duration of the Games but, given she never set foot on the pitch, she and her fellow travelling reserves were forced to watch from the sidelines as their GB teammates were awarded bronze medals.

So, finding out her fate this time around evoked, Costello admits, a gamut of emotions.

“We knew an email letting us know the team was coming through at 12pm on the day of selection so it was a long morning waiting for it. I was with my mum and when I read the email saying I was in, so many emotions came out,” says Costello, whose fellow Scots Sarah Robertson and Charlotte Watson have also been selected in the women's squad, with Jess Buchanan selected as a reserve. Lee Morton is selected in the men’s squad.

Costello continued: “Having been on the wrong side of selection the last time, I definitely felt relieved to know I was in the full squad this time and I just broke down in tears. Over the past six or so weeks, I’ve been trying to put it to the back of my mind but you can’t help wondering about what you’ll feel like if you make it in or you don’t so the build-up to getting that email is such a minefield of emotions.

“It was a great experience three years ago in Tokyo but I did feel a bit out of place. So, this time, to be able to be really excited about the whole process is just so exciting.”

In the aftermath of Tokyo 2020, Costello experienced something of a rollercoaster when it came to her hockey career.

(Image: Getty)

De-selection from the GB squad led her to relocate to Germany for six months and she spent almost a year seriously pondering if she had the motivation to continue pursuing a career in international hockey.

The Commonwealth Games in 2022 - in which Costello helped Scotland to a sixth-place finish – helped reignite the spark inside her and the London-based defender forced her way back into the GB set-up before becoming an integral member of the squad over the past two years.

“In Tokyo, I felt like I was in the infancy of my GB career so I did think I’d like to try again for the Olympics. But then after a de-selection, you experience a dip in self-belief and it took a while to get back to a point where I believed that I was good enough to get to an Olympics,” she says.

“It’s not been a straightforward journey to this point – I’ve had a fair few downs in a GB shirt so I’m incredibly proud of the work I’ve done and mentally and physically to now be going to an Olympics.

“During the downs, you don’t appreciate that it’ll make you a stronger player in the long-run but now I’m out the other side, it definitely does feel like I’m a better player than I’ve ever been.”

Costello’s journey has led to her now being on the verge of fulfilling an Olympic dream that originated during the summer of 2012 when she watched her fellow Scots, Emily Maguire and Laura Bartlett, help GB to third place at London 2012.

It was at that moment that the Edinburgh woman began to realise that Olympic success may be a more realistic goal than she had initially thought.

“When I was very young, I saw the Olympics as something that was very cool but I felt so far removed from it. It wasn’t until after the 2012 Games when Laura Bartlett and Emily Maguire came along to under-16 inter-district tournament I was playing in and brought their bronze medals that they won in London that I thought wow, two Scottish girls have won Olympic medals so maybe it is possible.”

Costello is now that player to whom countless young Scottish girls will look up to but as she prepares to head to Paris next month, Costello and her teammates have far higher ambitions than merely making up the numbers.

With GB’s women’s hockey team having won bronze, gold and bronze at the past three Olympic Games, it’s hardly surprising that the current crop are keen to continue that run of medal-winning success this summer.

“The women’s team has done so well in the past three Olympics so we’re definitely aiming for a medal again this time. And I don’t think a medal is an unrealistic target,” Costello says.

“It’s massive for the sport in Scotland to have a few of us in the squad for Paris. 

“It’s a real credit to the progress Scottish hockey has been making but it is weird to think there’ll be young girls looking up to me because in some ways, I still feel like that 14-year-old watching London 2012.

"When I’m back in Scotland, I love speaking to kids and answering their questions because I really believe if you can’t see it, you can’t be it. So if I can help them believe making it to the Olympics is possible then that’s great.”