Four police officers in high-vis vests snuck into the back of the Tollcross stand as Duncan Scott stepped onto the blocks. This was 1:56.38s of sporting theatre that nobody in Scotland wanted to miss.
Scott first dived into this east end pool as a ten-year-old boy. He swam here as a sixth-form student at the 2014 Commonwealth Games but those expectations were nothing like what he felt in Lane two on Friday night.
The sell-out crowd waved their Saltires and roared every stroke as Scott won the hosts’ first gold medal of the competition. Adam Ramsay-Peaty was on the same ticket but the locals were here to see one man only.
Scott is the posterboy of these Games and his storming victory in the 200m individual medley provided lift-off. It had a similar feel to Antoine Dupont winning France’s first gold medal on the Sevens pitch at the Paris Olympics, hearing the anthem for the first time.
‘I was a wee bit nervous before that,’ admitted the 29-year-old, who held off a late surge from New Zealand’s Lewis Clareburt.
Even the coppers were bouncing. Back in 2014, Scott swam here as a 17-year-old dreamer. He returned as one of the country’s most iconic athletes, ready to add an 11th gold (and counting) to his collection of Olympic, World and Commonwealth medals.
Duncan Scott claimed gold for Scotland in the pool at the Commonwealth Games on Friday
Adam Ramsay-Peaty, meanwhile, eased into the final of the 100m breaststroke in the evening
The locals admire Scott for what he stands for. He campaigns against the closure of local leisure centres – of which Tollcross is one. He lobbies politicians for more funding for public swimming pools and stays true to his principles.
At the 2019 World Championships, for example, he refused to shake hands with Chinese swimmer Sun Yang in protest against his doping conviction.
You suspect Scott would have been Scotland’s flagbearer if his race schedule had not clashed with the opening ceremony. These days, he is held in the same regard as Sir Chris Hoy, his countryman who stepped out of Dr Who’s Tardis with the King on Thursday night.
Scott did not hang around to bask in his glory. The adulation does not come naturally like it does for his contemporary, Ramsay-Peaty. The pair have been room-mates and relay team-mates at the Olympics, enjoying similarly meteoric rises.
With a new name on his swimming cap, Ramsay-Peaty is now hoping to follow Scott onto the medal podium on Saturday night, having qualified for the final of the 100m breaststroke.
His famous wife, Holly, was in the crowd as his qualification faced a bizarre snag. Moments before his first race, one of the lane dividers broke off the pool wall, requiring an official to strip down and jump into the pool to reconnect it.
The amusing 10-minute delay did little to change Glasgow 2026’s image as the Poundshop Games, but at least it did not unsettle the Englishman.
‘In any sport, stuff goes wrong,’ said Ramsay-Peaty. ‘It doesn’t help losing all the heat when you’re preparing. There’s ten minutes where you’re losing hydration, I guess, but you know what I’ve done a lot better in worse conditions.
Adam was cheered on by wife Holly, who shared a snap of her view to social media
The couple, who have become a celebrity power couple, were married in December last year
‘Even if it’s a first – scoreboards break, clocks break – the guys got it together pretty well. It was only 10 minutes, right? Hopefully it doesn’t happen again. It’s a bit of extra time to enjoy the crowd, I guess. Obviously, I’m a sprinter, so every second counts, but you know what? Stuff happens in sport, stuff happens in life, and you’ve got to get on with it.’
Peaty shared this pool with Scott in 2014. Their journeys have taken different routes, but they seem destined for the same place on the podium.
