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Glenrothes teenager, Daniel Scott startled the complete field to win the national senior 50 metres butterfly title in Sunday's Short Course Championships in Glasgow. But no one was more surprised by his success than the Glenrothes Amateur Swimming Club teenager.
"I wasn't expecting to go that fast and I certainly didn't think I would win," said Scott. "The majority of the people in the race I hadn't beaten before so I was really pleased to beat them."
Scott has accumulated a cabinet of junior titles but capturing his first senior crown, a ged just 16 years old and achieved whilst carving a full second off his previous personal best, is a significant step.
"Before the race my PB was 26.44 seconds but I took a fair amount of time off my personal best in the heats then in the final as well where I swum 25.44," said Scott, who attributes his success to a diet of hard work and the solid support team of club coach, Dave McLean and Tayside and Fife Institute of Sport's High Performance Swimming Coach, Gary Vandermeulen.
As a Tayside and Fife Institute of Sport athlete, Scott has access to quality training facilities, individually tailored coaching programmes, delivered by experienced coaches and a fully integrated strength and conditioning programme.
Complementing and supporting technical and tactical expertise, the Scottish Area Institute network provides access to sports science, sports medicine and performance lifestyle services. Vandermeulen helped Dunfermline swimmer, Andrew Rodgie's transformation from club swimmer to European Championship finalist during the 2006 season. Rodgie has since been inducted into both the Scottish Institute of Sport and British Swimming's World Class Development Programme.
"Gary and Dave have been working really closely together on my programme," said Scott. "We've increased the amount of training hours, I do two pool sessions a week with Gary and I get land training and weight training with the Tayside & Fife Institute. The weights have made me a lot more powerful off the blocks and the psychology has been really useful too. As a result my butterfly has really improved over the last year."
Although Scott's ultimate ambition is to rise to the heights of the Commonwealth and Olympic Games, his immediate focus is to qualify for the British team competing in July's European Junior Swimming Championships in Antwerp. His qualification is dependent on his results in the British trials this March but winning his first senior title will give him a vital lift.
"This will be Daniel's first year of eligibility for the European Junior Championships which are his focus this summer," said Vandermeulen. "It's unusual to qualify for the European juniors in the first year because the time standards are so fast.
"But the times that Daniel is doing just now show he's on track to do that. Winning the 50 fly is significant because he's leap frogged up the rankings in Scotland.
"The psychology involved beating people you have never previously beaten is significant in sport. I was really pleased Daniel was able to handle that kind of pressure and do that on the weekend."
Scott added, "It was a huge confidence boost to win the race and I couldn't wait to get back into training the day after the competition to try and improve again."
