Not even Keanna MacInnes herself could have believed that at the fledgling age of just 16 would she be headed to her first Commonwealth Games and rubbing shoulders with the great and the good of Scottish swimming.
The teenager from Edinburgh first made her name on the international stage last summer when she won bronze in the 200m butterfly at the World Junior Championships in the USA with her breakthrough onto the senior scene coming late last year when she received the call-up for Team Scotland for Gold Coast 2018.
Whilst she knew that she was one of Scotland’s best junior swimmers, she admits that she never would have believed that she would have made the transition from a junior athlete to a senior one so seamlessly.
“It’s really cool to be going to the Games - it’s so exciting,” she said. “A couple of years ago, I would never have expected this. It’s pretty nerve-wracking being in the team with people who are so much older than me but everyone has been so nice and really friendly so I feel like I’ve settled in.”
A number of MacInnes’ teammates are superstars in the swimming world, including Olympic medallists Duncan Scott and Stephen Milne and reigning Commonwealth champion Ross Murdoch. But there is one person in particular who MacInnes is especially excited to headed to Gold Coast with.
“I looked up to Hannah Miley when I was younger and I remember racing against her for the first time - I completely messed up my race that first time I was up against her because I was so nervous,” she said.
“She’s the person I looked up to when I was coming through so it’s pretty exciting to be her teammate now. But there’s so many other good swimmers on the team so it’ll be great to be around everyone of them - it’s great to be a part of the squad.
“And the good thing is that I don’t have too much pressure on me so that will allow me to focus purely on my own performance.”
MacInnes cannot afford to concentrate solely on swimming though - not long after she returns from the Commonwealth Games, the Firhill High fifth year pupil will sit her Highers and she knows that she must force herself to do at least a little bit of studying while at the Games despite the distractions.
“The thought of being in the Athletes’ Village is really exciting and the atmosphere at the Games is going to be so much better than anything I’ve ever experienced before so I want to enjoy that,” she said.
“I’ll take my books and do some revising when I’m out there. I’ll do as much studying as I can before I go and then I’ll use any spare moments I have at the Games to cram some more studying in but I also want to be able to fully enjoy the experience of being at the Games.
It’s such a good time for Scottish swimming though - there’s so many strong swimmers and so many chances of people doing well at the Commonwealth Games and so I want to be able to take that all in.”
Combining elite level swimming and the life of a high school pupil may not that of a typical teenager and while MacInnes admits she has limited time to socialise around her training and school schedule, she does not for a second wish things were any different.
“My friends are really supportive and if there’s things on that I can’t go to, they’re really understanding,” she said.
“I don’t have the chance to go out with my friends all that much but I’m fine with that, it’s worth it for what I’m doing. I don’t feel like I’m making sacrifices, I’m doing so well in swimming at the moment so I don’t mind giving a few things up.”
MacInnes’ first taste of the water was at the tender age of just three but in her early days, she combined swimming and diving, even reaching national level in diving. But it was in swimming her passions really lay and since specialising, she has gone from strength to strength.
The Scottish representation in the Rio 2016 Olympic team was significant and with another wave of talent coming through, it seems that it is likely that there will be a number of Scottish faces in the next Olympic team too. There is still work for MacInnes to do to get to that level but it is most certainly not an unachievable target.
“The 2020 Olympics is in my thoughts but having said that, there’s a long way to go until then,” she admitted.
“I’d have a lot of work to do if I was to get there but when I watched the Rio Olympics in 2016, I definitely thought that I’d like that to be me at some point.
“It’s a big step up being part of the Olympic team compared to even being in the Commonwealth Games team but the good thing about going to Gold Coast at such a young age means that I’ll gain a lot of experience, which will hopefully be really helpful for me going forward.”
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