Meeting of the Parliament 07 August 2014
I start by joining with James Dornan and colleagues across the chamber in the collective love-in for all those who made Glasgow 2014 work. It was, without question, a great achievement and, in judging the legacy, I suspect that much good will come of them in sporting and economic terms.
As a Shetlander, I would find it difficult not to start not just with Erraid Davies but with all three Shetland girls who made team Scotland. For Erraid to win a bronze medal in a para-swimming discipline was a fantastic success. It was so unexpected. In all the assessments that I saw, including when I asked those at the top of Scottish Swimming what they expected to happen, at no time did I see that her success was expected. That is why it is a triumph for her personally and also for her coach and family, and for all Shetland. We are all very proud of her.
We have to be equally proud of Andrea Strachan, who made the 50m final in the breaststroke. She is one of the eight fastest girls in the 50m in the Commonwealth, and that is one heck of an achievement for her, and for her coaches at the University of Edinburgh, where she is on the swim team.
I did two good things during the 10 days of the Commonwealth games. First, I spent a lot of money in the bars of Glasgow, so I did my bit to help Mr Dornan’s city’s economy, although I would rather that did not get home to Shetland.
The second good thing that I did was in response to a text message that I took from Andrea Strachan’s dad while she was swimming in the semi-final, in which he asked whether there was any chance that I could get some tickets for the final, because the family had run out. I would like to thank the people who helped to make that happen—I will not mention them all—because I was very proud to see Andrea swim in the final, but I felt even better, as a Shetlander, knowing that her whole family was there, including her grandfather and a bunch of her wider family. To see someone whom you have known for a long time swim in a final of the Commonwealth games takes a bit of beating.
Lynda Flaws was in team Scotland’s table tennis team. She is doing exams at the moment—poor soul—to get back into university in a few weeks’ time, because some time ago she went to Tokyo to compete in an international table tennis event in order to make the grade and qualify for team Scotland. That worked, and we hope that her university markers look favourably on the work that she is now doing to ensure that she continues her glittering academic career. I should say that Lynda was skinning my son on a football field at the age of 10, so she is very talented at every sport, and I am sure that she will continue to be so.
The games gave us many great memories. One of my most abiding memories will be of the great support for all the home nations. I confess that I did not know so many Scots knew the words to “Jerusalem”. The night that Hannah Miley and Ross Murdoch won and Andrea Strachan qualified for the final of the 50m breaststroke, it was quite noticeable that when the English lad won an event—I forget the discipline—the place erupted in the same way. That was the experience that I had at all the events that I went to. Of course the roof came off when team Scotland won, but the support for athletes from all the home nations was astronomical. It made me very proud to be a Scot and to be part of those proceedings.
Another great memory is of the Malaysian rugby sevens team doing a lap of honour at Ibrox—I have not seen many laps of honour at Ibrox recently—at the end of the Sunday morning proceedings to say thanks to the fans, who had cheered them through defeat after defeat. The Malaysian rugby sevens players probably did more for Malaysian diplomacy than anything else that is going on at the moment. I was proud to see everyone in the stadium rise to applaud them. Selfies were taken and fun was had by lots of kids, who rushed down to the front to have their photographs taken with the hulking great rugby players. Over the two days of the competition, 170,000 people came to Ibrox, which was a world record crowd for rugby. If that competition has a legacy, it is probably that rugby sevens has come to Scotland; I should really say “come home”, because, after all, the sport started in Melrose. That was a tremendous achievement.
At Hampden, two days before I saw David Rudisha lose to the astonishing Botswanan athlete Nijel Amos in the 800m—I never thought that I would see Rudisha lose a race after he won the Olympics—I saw a Nigerian discuss thrower in the para discipline walk into the throwing ring, throw down both his crutches and, on one leg, throw the discuss 45m and come second—he won the silver medal. He did a lap of honour and, believe me, Hampden stood for that. His was an unbelievable achievement.
The decision to integrate the events for able-bodied athletes with those for competitors with disabilities was a brilliant one. Across the sports, that integration worked fantastically.
There is one legacy that I want to mention in addition to the legacies that Liz Smith rightly mentioned to do with schools and leadership, such as walking to school and participation in sport, and all the other legacies that other colleagues have rightly mentioned—a levelling of the playing field so that, regardless of where in Scotland they live, as well as being able to compete at an elite level, people can simply take part in sport. I am talking about sports clubs in my part of the world having the ability to compete against other sports clubs from across the country in their disciplines. I know that the minister is seized of the importance of that, and I thank her for her very positive response, not just on Tuesday but on other occasions. I recognise her commitment to that. For me, it would be a great legacy to ensure that, regardless of where they live in Scotland, an Erraid Davies, an Andrea Strachan, a Lynda Flaws or the Shetland rugby team can take part in competitive sport. If we can do that, we will be making real progress.
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