With Glasgow widely tipped to edge out Abuja when the venue for the 2014 Commonwealth Games is announced in Sri Lanka on Friday, the planning has already begun to ensure that there are more Scots medallists than ever before.
With the prime age for competitors in many of the 17 events that would be featured at Glasgow 2014 in the early to mid twenties, many of the medallists of the future are currently teenagers who are just beginning to make names for themselves in their
chosen sports. Here are ten of the best medal hopes for the Games in seven years time:
JUDO
Teak-tough 16-year-old Ashley Fleming from Shettleston is one of the brightest Scottish judo prospects and is confidently expected to win gold in 2014. One of a group of five outstanding Glasgow-based teenage girls who train with Gary Edwards - Samantha Clark and Lindsay Macpherson are also heavily tipped to win gold - Fleming is competing at next year's Beijing Olympics in the blue riband heavyweight (over 78kgs) category.
"A judo player who never takes a step backwards" according to Edwards, she became the first Scottish girl ever to win a medal at the European Under-20 Championship when she picked up a bronze.
BOXING
Veteran coach Bert Watt reckons that flyweight Robert "Rocky" Wright, who recently turned 17, could one day be compared with Benny Lynch. The babyfaced 5ft 1in boxer is already drawing large crowds, such as that which saw him demolish 18-year-old Scottish champion John Simpson 27-13 (almost a no-contest) in Greenock on Thursday night. A member of the GB Olympic squad for Beijing, Wright has been the British champion at junior flyweight (48-50kgs) for three years and in July won silver at the European Cadet Championships in Hungary at under-16 level.
WRESTLING
Nineteen-year-old Sean Keogh from Milngavie is from one of Scottish wrestling's best-known families and has long been the British No.1 at his age group. Now wrestling in the senior 84kg category, he is expected to medal at the senior UK championships in June. Keogh is so committed to his wrestling that he spent the final year of school in the USA, where the sport is popular - unfortunately he arrived in Louisiana at the same time as Hurricane Katrina.
SHOOTING
Matthew Thomson, who won the under-21 world championship in Zagreb in July, is the very best of the next generation of shooters, an event at which Scotland has excelled. The former George Watson's pupil, now 21, first came across the sport as a 12-year-old at school, and still shoots for the Watsonians FP club. His father and uncle are both Scottish international shooters and his aunt Janice won a bronze in Kuala Lumpur and also competed in Manchester. A reserve for the full-bore prone (lying down) in Beijing, where he is understudying Scot Jonathan Hammond, he is the Scottish senior record holder and is now on the UK Pathway programme, which basically means that he is full-time.
GYMNASTICS
Daniel Keating is 17 and will be a force to be reckoned with in both 2012 and 2014. He is already a major name in world gymnastics after finishing with the silver medal on the pommel horse at the European Championships, while he also finished seventh at the Worlds despite a fall.
The Northamptonshire-based gymnast, whose qualifies for Scotland through his father, competed at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games in 2006 and will go to Beijing, where he is a very real medal prospect. Hopes are also high that he will become the first ever British male to win the all-round title at the European Junior Championships next year.
ATHLETICS
Still just 15, middle distance runner Beth Potter is the British No.1 at her age group and one of the brightest prospects in Scottish running since Liz McColgan and Yvonne Murray.
Indeed, at the Scottish Schools championships at Grangemouth in July, she broke Murray's under-17 1500m record, which had stood for 26 years, by an incredible six seconds. The following day she beat Siobhan Coleman's 3000m Scottish under-17 record by 12 seconds.
The Glaswegian competes at 800m, 1500m and 3000m, and was second in both the UK School Games and England under-17s open at 1500m. Potter has already represented Scotland, coming fifth in July's Celtic Cup 3000m, when she raced against Sonia O'Sullivan.
BADMINTON
Kieren Merrilees has moved out of a pack of talented young badminton players to establish himself as the top under-19 singles player in the UK and one of the brightest singles prospects Scotland has had for decades.
The current under-19 Scottish champion (a title he also held at under-15 and under-17 level), the 18-year-old from Milngavie won three major under-19 tournaments around Europe as a 16-year-old and is representing Britain at the world youth championships in Melbourne in January.
SWIMMING
It's all in the genes for 16-year-old East Kilbride swimmer Douglas Scott, whose younger sister Corrie is also a member of the Scottish Youth Squad. The Scottish national junior record holder for the 50m breaststroke, he competed as part of the GB team at this summer's European Youth Olympics and was a medallist at the ASA youth championships.
CYCLING
Cross-country mountain biker Kenta Gallagher was second at the British Under-16 Championships in Plymouth in June and is widely expected to turn that into a gold medal at next year's championships.
The 15-year-old is one of a group of eight junior riders who will be 22 or 23 in 2014, and national coach Gary Willis has particularly high hopes for the Inverness rider.
Gallagher has also been demonstrating his talent by turning his hand to road racing, recently winning the sprinter's jersey in Kerry in his first race.
WEIGHTLIFTING
"I've been involved in weightlifting for 20 years and I've never seen a lad this strong before, nor will I ever see one again," says weightlifting coach Charlie Hamilton of his 19-year-old protégé Peter Kirkbride.
As well as being the best under-85kg lifter in Britain while still in his teens, at the British under-23 championships, staged at Kirkbride's own club of Kilmarnock two weeks ago, the young Scot broke the Scottish junior, Scottish under-23 and Scottish senior records at both the snatch (where he lifted 135kgs) and the clean and snatch (175kgs). With lifters at their peak aged 28-29, and Kirkbride turning 20 next month, the 2014 Games could not be coming at a better time.
