Commonwealth Youth Games: Scotland shoot onto medal table

BANFF shooter Kay Copland landed the first medal for Scotland – a gold – at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune, India, yesterday.

And within minutes of her winning the 50 metre rifle prone, Rory McAlpine from Lasswade in Midlothian doubled Scotland's medal tally by winning a bronze medal in the boys' equivalent.

"It's beyond my wildest dreams to compete in an event like this and it feels absolutely amazing to win the gold medal," said Copland, 18, who scored 585 from a maximum of 600, beating Afiqah Nurfarah of Malaysia and England's Sheree Cox into second and third place respectively.

"I didn't think I'd ever get gold, I didn't think I'd even get a medal, so I'm so happy. The event is quite a high standard, so I was quite nervous before the start."

McAlpine, 17, finished behind James Huckle of England and Matthew Hall of Northern Ireland. Had it not been for one stray shot in the final, the Scot might have finished higher.

"I had one shocking shot right in the middle of the final on my fifth shot and thought I had ruined my chances but I managed to put it out of my mind," he said. "I'm very relieved to win the bronze medal, I was very proud to be standing on the podium."

Equally delighted was Sinclair Bruce, the Scottish shooting team's manager from Linlithgow. "It's obviously a great start for the team to get a gold and bronze on the same day and they came in very different ways," he said. "Rory had a rocky start in the 60 shot qualification. He came off, had a chat and he was like a different shooter, while Kay was steady all the way."

Huckle became England's first gold medallist at the Games. The 18-year-old from Harlow finished 1.1 points ahead of Hall.

Elsewhere in the games, Scotland's three 1,500 metre runners all qualified for today's final. Livingston 17-year-old Chris O'Hare finished joint first in his heat in a time of 3 minutes 52 seconds.

Beth Potter, 16, from Bearsden, completed her heat in third. Carnoustie's Eilish McColgan, watched by her mother, former world champion and Olympic medallist Liz, finished fifth in her heat but her time of 4 minutes 32 seconds was quicker than the winner of Potter's heat, qualifying her as the fastest loser.

"I had left too much to catch up after 800 metres," said McColgan. "I will have to stay with them (in the final] no matter what pace they go off at."

Edinburgh's Martin Campbell, the Bank of Scotland Scottish Junior champion, headed a good day for the Scots on the badminton court by reaching two quarter-finals.

Campbell beat Canada's Martin Giuffre 21-16, 21-14 in the singles and then partnered Troon's Angus Gilmour to a 21-13, 21-9 win over Giuffre and Geoffrey Dona Prieur in the last 16 of the boys' doubles. Longniddry's Paul Van Rietvelde also cruised through his first round of singles with a 21-6, 21-10 victory over Fiji's Devarisi Sharma and then joined his Longniddry colleague, Craig Pollock, in a 21-13, 21-8 win over Sharma and Chee Ying Wong in the doubles.

Away from the action, four nations yesterday threatened to pull out unless they were given new accommodation following reports that a city hotel had to be fumigated because of a rat problem. The Scots are in a different hotel and team management moved quickly to deliver an assurance to parents that their children were not affected.