Gold Coast 2018 Countdown . . .

Friday 9th March 2018

The BBC will provide more than 200 hours of coverage of the Commonwealth Games in Australia across television, radio and online from April 4-15.

TV coverage runs daily from 00:00 BST across BBC One, BBC Two and Red Button, with further coverage on BBC Four and a highlights show on BBC Two.

BBC Radio 5 live will have a breakfast show and live commentary of the action and there is also a significant cohort travelling to Gold Coast to provide material for BBC Scotland.

Both the BBC Sport website and app and BBC iPlayer will stream the coverage with on-demand clips also available. The BBC Red Button will provide a round-the-clock schedule of live and catch-up programming throughout the Games.

Barbara Slater, director of BBC Sport, said: ‘The Commonwealth Games are a hugely popular sporting event for people across the UK.

‘Our unrivalled cross-platform offer will transport audiences to the Gold Coast and put them at the heart of the action to follow their sporting heroes throughout 11 days of top-class competition.’

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Ian Mirfin believes the 2018 Commonwealth Games will be ‘a great experience’ for Team Scotland’s Para athletics stars.

Sammi Kinghorn, Maria Lyle and Amy Carr are heading out to Australia this month in preparation for the event, which begins on April 4.

Ian, the Para sport lead for elite athletes in Scotland, is excited to see how the triumvirate perform in the heat of the Gold Coast.

He told Agility Magazine: ‘It’s a great experience for young people to get the chance to go to the other side of the world to compete.

‘Amy won a couple of gold medals in the World Juniors last year, but it’s a F37/38 long jump and she’s an F37. The F38s jump quite a bit further but it’s just a great opportunity for her and will be her first Senior Scotland vest.

‘Maria will have a real chance of picking up a medal in the 100m, while Sammi’s a bit different because she’s usually a sprinter and her two events will be the 1500m and the marathon.

‘She’s fourth in the rankings for one, and fifth for the other, so a medal would be a great achievement. She’s never going to do those events again, so for the time being this is just a one-off and a chance to represent Scotland at the Commonwealth Games.’

*There will be a full interview with Ian Mirfin in the launch issue of Agility Magazine later this month.

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Beth Potter is lined up to make Team Scotland history after being selected in two different sports at the same Commonwealth Games.

A year ago, the 26-year-old joined the triathlon training squad of Olympic gold and silver medallists Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee in Leeds.

Now Beth, an Olympian in Rio at the 10,000m, was a talented swimmer in her youth and will now compete in the triathlon events at Gold Coast 2018 as well as the 10,000m.

‘It was a very ambitious goal when I moved to Leeds,,’ said Beth. ‘I hadn’t done a triathlon and I said that I wanted to qualify for Gold Coast. Quite a few people thought I was a bit mad.’

Read a Team Scotland website interview with Beth