DUNCAN Scott was the man with the Midas touch during 2018. As if winning that record haul of six medals from the Gold Coast wasn’t enough, even when he toured them around the low-key environs of Recreation Park, his beloved Alloa Athletic took that as their cue to win promotion via the League One play-offs.
Those in the know, where it comes to swimming, fully expected this 21-year-old from Glasgow to make a splash this year, but the scale of his achievements still sent ripples through the sport.
This is a man, after all, who had never previously competed for Scotland in an individual Commonwealth Games event. Yet here he was, ripping up the record books with a six-medal haul from the same games. Only two men, his fellow swimmer Gregor Tait in Melbourne in 2006 and shooter Jonathan Hammond in Delhi in 2010, had ever managed four. Having set the standard for Scotland, it was entirely fitting that he should end up with the saltire for the closing ceremony.
When Scott’s coach Steven Tigg presented his star pupil with Ian Thorpe’s autobiography a few years back, even he can’t have imagined that the story would come full circle so spectacularly this Spring. It just so happened that the self-styled "Thorpedo" was watching on from the steeply-banked, crammed stands of the Optus Aquatics Centre as this prodigious 21-year-old went within one medal of matching his record haul from a single Commonwealth Games.
“I’ve not had a chance to see my mum and dad yet so I’ll see them before I see him!” Scott said good-naturedly after his signature race, a stunning 100m freestyle win. “Sorry Thorpey!”
That 100m freestyle victory will live long in the memory, a great example of the trait Scott has had since his earliest days in the pool, an unquenchable desire to touch the wall first ahead of his rivals when a race boils down to those frantic last few strokes.
That closing speed was in evidence again here, as he swam 24.65 coming back to get the touch ahead of Chad Le Clos of South Africa, a man with no more than 32 major gold medals to his name. Aside from an unmistakeable gaggle of Scottish supporters, he also silenced the crowd who were there to back home favourites Cameron McEvoy and Kyle Chalmers, the reigning Olympic champion in this event.
“I maybe left it a bit too late!” joked Scott. “Even my coach was on edge. I was just trying to race Chad next to me, because I couldn’t see past him. I was a bit behind at 50 and even at 75, so I was just trying to catch him. But I’ve got a really strong last 25 and managed to get my hand on the wall first.”
It was Scotland’s only swimming gold of the meet, although Scott also racked up individual silver in the 200IM and bronze in the 200m freestyle and 200m butterfly, in addition to helping Scotland to team bronzes in the 4x100m freestyle and 4x200m freestyle. No wonder he is said to be in demand for the International Swimming League (ISL), a potentially lucrative new swimming tour which is currently involved in a wrangle with governing body Fina.
There should be an honourable mention here for divers Grace Reid and James Heatly but, as it turned out, Scott was only getting started. No sooner had he left Australia, and done his little turn around Recreation Park, than he was steeling himself for the European Championships at Tollcross in Glasgow and, yet again, the Scot’s staying power would be much in evidence.
If it had been a minor disappointment by Scott’s standards that he couldn’t live with Alessandro Miressi and had to settle for silver in the 100m freestyle, he more than made up for it in the 200m freestyle.
Finding himself in lane eight having only squeezed into the final, he blindsided the rest of the field to take a remarkable gold by almost two thirds of a second from Danas Rapsys of Lithuania in a time of 1.45.34. It was perhaps the moment of this European Championships, this time part of a four-medal haul of three golds and one silver.
Happily back in action after the minor mishap of rupturing ankle ligaments tripping over a pavement in Stirling, Scott will be back at it in 2019, with a World Championships to look forward to in Gwangju in July. From there, it is full steam ahead for the man with the Midas touch and his date with Olympic destiny in Tokyo in 2020.
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