Scotland’s most successful female swimmer Hannah Miley knows what it takes to win medals in Glasgow, and she is backing the Scots to lead the charge at next month’s LEN European Short Course Swimming Championships.
Triple Olympian Miley, who won 400m medley gold at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, will miss the event as she continues her recovery from ankle surgery but will be watching from the sidelines as the likes of Duncan Scott and Ross Murdoch go for gold for Great Britain.
She never likes to be biased but the Aberdeen-based swimmer believes her fellow Scots will be the heart of British success at the championships. She said: “I don’t want to just name the Scots but we have Duncan Scott and Ross Murdoch on the team, who will definitely be home crowd favourites.
“We have Scott leading a very strong team off the back of a very successful World Championships and I’m confident he and our team will bring back medals.
“Short course swimming tends to be a different type of competition compared to long course racing. It’s fast, it’s short, it’s sharp, with everyone sprinting to get to the wall first.
“It is a strong team and I think the names we have on it will be more than ready to race fast.”
Scott and Murdoch will be joined by the likes of Aimee Willmott, Craig Benson and Scott McLay at the event at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre from December 4-8.
While Miley has never once doubted their ability to perform, she knows that even if races do get tough, there’s nothing like a Scottish home crowd to spur her compatriots, both the favourites and the inexperienced, on to success. She added: “It really does motivate you.
“I felt myself standing up taller, my chest puffing out.
“The way the crowd sits, they’re pretty much on top of the pool. There’s not much separation between the pool deck and the stands. It makes you really want to get stuck in and race as hard as you can.
“For the juniors in the team especially, it will be a really positive experience.”
