29/06/2014 Sport XIV

Hello and welcome to June's edition of Sport XIV.

Forget the World Cup,

the Commonwealth Games are just under a month away.

The final team has been picked

and it is battle stations for all our athletes, including this one.

I have got a helmet on, body armour, big pads,

and everyone else wears a gum-shield.

So I think I am probably the most sensible.

Scottish hockey's Amy Gibson debunks the myth about a goalkeeper's

-frame of mind.

-I was out for just under ten years. Competing wise.

I think it would be a much better way to end my gymnastics career.

Judo player John Buchanan and gymnast Adam Cox

are turning back the clock for one last shot at glory.

To get to an international, as in football,

was a million miles away from the level I was at.

The Stenhousemuir striker who had to quit football

in order to represent Scotland at Hampden.

Because I go through so much rubbish, in the end.

And wheelchair racer Meggan Dawson-Farrell

on digging deep when it matters.

But first, hockey. They say that all goalkeepers are mad.

But Scotland's number one, Amy Gibson, seems perfectly composed.

That is despite the odd ukulele jam session with her dog,

as you are about to see.

People say that goalkeepers are the most stupid in the team.

But basically, I have got a helmet on, body armour, big pads,

and everyone else wears a gum-shield.

So I think I'm probably the most sensible.

I played football and my mum told me

that I said I didn't like running about, so I ended up just

playing in goals, because you are standing about, don't do so much.

It is difficult, obviously, if a forward loses the ball

or does not stop properly, it goes to a defender, and that is fine.

Or it goes off the pitch.

Whereas, if I don't stop the ball properly, it will go in the goal.

That is a pretty big mistake.

As a goalkeeper you have got to be able to deal with that.

It is something you learn to deal with

over the years of being a goalkeeper.

In a game you maybe get one or two shots

and then you get a break for five minutes.

Or if we are attacking, you might not have much to do, in the sense

that you don't need to save a ball,

but you're still chatting to everyone.

In a game, if you make a mistake

or don't save the ball as nicely as you want to,

you need to get over that and just keep talking to your defenders.

I have got my ukulele. I like to play it sometimes.

There is a song that me and my housemate sometimes sing

if we have a guest over or whatever.

It is a bit lame. But we just make up our own words.

It goes a bit like this.

PLAYS RIFF REPEATEDLY

And then we just make up our own words.

This is one that has been in the charts. It is pretty good.

I'll play it, see if you can guess what it is.

PLAYS CHORD STRUCTURE

Oh, I've messed it up!

Any ideas? It is 5 Years Time, by Noah And The Whale.

I have been chosen to carry the Queen's baton through Dumbarton.

I asked for a medium and they sent a large. Just a wee bit big.

Wear it over my goalie kit!

I went to the trials

and I got selected into the GB squad through that.

We all went to San Diego in February.

Unfortunately I was injured and never got to play.

I'm really disappointed,

because I really want to play with Kate Richardson-Walsh,

but she is retiring after the Commonwealth Games.

So, I am a wee bit disappointed that I will never get to play with her.

It would be good to be able to get to the final

and play against England in the final.

But I am obviously going to want to do it for my country.

Sorry, Kate, but I'm going to deny you that shot.

We are aiming for a semifinal.

That is the aim, so, to come top two in the group.

That will be difficult with who we have in the group -

Australia, England, Malaysia and Wales. It will be a tough ask.

But we have been working really hard.

We performed really well last year at the Europeans,

and we basically started where we finished at the Europeans,

we have just grown on top of that.

We're hoping we can go out there and perform well and get the wins.

DOG BARKS ALONG WITH TUNE

That is pretty good. That is Britain's Got Talent!

Have you heard the one about the old warhorse

making a comeback for one last shot at glory

after a decade in retirement?

It is not a Hollywood movie plot, it is the real-life story

of judo hero John Buchanan,

who is about to cap an amazing comeback.

Originally I finished in 2004.

I competed in the Sydney Olympics,

I won a medal in the 2001 World Championships,

and I was reserved for the Athens Olympics.

I missed that place to Craig Fallon.

That's when I decided to call it a day.

Myself and my wife, Claire Buchanan,

we moved everything we owned in the back of a car, back home to Scotland.

I was out for just under ten years, competing wise,

I never fought a competition until the tail end of last year.

I remember watching the 2012 Olympics in London and I just,

it inspires you.

You think, I wish I'd stuck in.

With the home Games in Glasgow,

I came in and had a meeting with David, I said, "Do you think

"if I have a bit of training I could maybe make the team?"

Certainly when we first discussed it there was a lot of laughter

amongst the two of us, in the conversation.

But no, I think the vast, vast majority of even high-performance

players would struggle, but John has aged relatively well.

He said, "We will get you to fight in a couple of tournaments.

"If they go well, we will back you

"and we will see how it goes from there."

The first two competitions that I fought in did not go very well.

In fact, the first three did not.

But the last three that I have fought in, I have medalled in every

single European Cup, the last three attempts.

The last one in Bosnia, which was the very last qualifier,

I beat the current European silver medallist.

Maybe two tournaments in, I was sitting with Euan over a cup of tea,

I said, "I think I might have bitten off more than I can chew."

He said the same.

"What if people say you are now no' good enough to make the team?"

The following day, I lost first round and Euan won the tournament.

And it was getting to the point where I was thinking,

"I'm going to call it a day."

It just so happened that the next tournament,

I managed to find a wee bit of form again and managed to pull a bronze.

Nobody trains harder than Buchanan.

He is a great athlete, John Buchanan.

You spend your whole judo career building yourself up to be

the number one in the country for five years,

and then it can all be undone in the blink of an eye.

I'll never, ever get back to how strong I was or how fit I was,

the very tournament I fought in, the very first contest I had, I lost.

And there was a kind of eerie silence.

Because my children were there,

I could hear them shouting in the crowd, "Come on, Daddy!"

And it was just a numbness. People were looking at my wife,

going, "What's he done there?!"

And she was going up the stairs of the stadium and there was a whole

group people sitting, and she said, "Oh, well, no fool like an old fool!"

Craig Fallon wins very, very comprehensively

against John Buchanan.

Mixed emotions that day. My wife got silver that day.

I was then current world medallist and I never won a fight.

So I can't really do any worse now, ten years on,

I am not really going to put any pressure on myself.

So it motivates me in that way, that I know that I can't do any worse.

It makes you feel both proud and inspired, if I'm being honest.

It is an inspiring story that athletes can drag themselves up

and rise from where they have maybe been in the past ten years.

It is most definitely too late for David Somerville!

Yeah, the body is not responding great.

I had a rib problem, a hamstring problem,

at the minute I have got a kind of knee problem.

Which again is just the volume of work on my older body, if you like.

But it is kind of holding together. I can see the finish line in sight,

so it only has to hold together for another nine weeks.

If I can get to the starting line in one piece,

I stand a good chance of getting a medal.

Don't go away, still plenty to come here on Sport XIV.

The thing I am definitely looking forward to

is going to Hampden Park and being part of that team, Scotland.

Having them here, even though they have won medals,

they are just the exact same as I am.

They are here to train.

If they are lifting those weights, I want to lift them weights as well!

Push you on a bit.

You heard earlier on about the comeback from John Buchanan.

Here is another story about somebody else rolling back the years.

Four years ago,

gymnast Adam Cox pulled out of the 2010 Games just before they started.

After two years in retirement he is back

as captain of what he says is our greatest ever team.

This will be my third Games, but it should be my fourth.

Let's get the sports news, over to David.

Scotland's athletes have delayed heading out

to the Commonwealth Games

but one Scot definitely not going at all is the gymnast, Adam Cox.

'Sports Report on BBC Radio Scotland.'

'Scottish Gymnastics sack their senior coach,

'throwing the Commonwealth Games hopes into doubt...'

My coach was dismissed by Scottish Gymnastics

two days before we flew out.

It was just an awkward situation. I decided not to compete in Delhi.

He was like a second dad to me. I retired for two years.

I went and got my teaching degree

and I started teaching in West Lothian Council.

It was summer 2012, just after the Olympics, I seen how well

the boys were getting on, doing a fantastic job, and looked at some

of the boys who would be in contention

for this Commonwealth Scottish team.

I thought, it would be a really great Games to be a part of,

a much better way to end my gymnastics career.

My first one was in Manchester Commonwealth Games when I was 15.

Steve Frew, team captain, was 29, almost twice my age.

And now I am almost going into the same situation with Frank Baines,

who is just 17, and I'm 27, so a good ten years his elder.

In terms of the team's Commonwealth experience

I have got the most experience of Commonwealth Games.

Daniel Keatings has done one Commonwealth Games, Daniel Purvis,

Frank Baines, and Liam Davie, it will all be their first time out.

I hope I can bring something to them

and show them a little bit of what it is all about.

Adam Cox. Final of the evening.

I was feeling like I was in my prime in Melbourne.

I went out, again, as the all-rounder,

and I made two finals, and it was always in the back of my mind

that I could go up and win a medal on bar.

It is something that I talked a lot about with my old coach.

On the day we went up, done the routine, and it hit.

It looks so long, uses the levers so effectively. Look at that.

Got to stick it. It is a triple. And just the pace.

But Adam Cox, taking an opportunity to impress.

It was a great feeling and I loved it.

There were 12,000 people in the Rod Laver Arena that night,

all on their feet, loving it.

It was a great experience, one I hope to duplicate in Glasgow.

There's the 19-year-old from Livingston taking bronze. And...

The older you get, the shorter you have to train.

So you need to be quite clever - shorter sessions,

compact more into it, longer rest periods

for your body to recover from it.

I've got old injuries as well. I've had both my shoulders operated on,

and my ankle, and I had a stress fracture in my spine.

My body is not in the best in terms of ligaments and tendons and bones

but I'm holding well together and I'm feeling really good.

The team that we've got for this Games is incredible

with the experience of Daniel Keatings, us both being Olympians.

I've got quite a bit of experience in Worlds and Europeans,

as well as the Commonwealth Games.

Frank Baines was the fantastic Junior European Champion

the previous time round.

He's starting to build his successes as a senior.

Liam Davie will be the youngster on the team

that's not got quite the same experience

at multi-internationals but this will be

a good stepping stone for him as well.

I believe that if this team go out there and do the job,

there's no reason we couldn't come back with a gold or silver medal.

This is definitely... This time the hand guards are going up.

In Delhi I felt like the decision was forced up on me,

I wasn't quite ready to let the sport go.

I think that's why, when I retired,

I left the gym and didn't come back for two years.

I was probably still hurting a little bit.

Now, I feel like I'm ready to go out and put on a fantastic show.

We'll hopefully have the best Commonwealth Games

so that I can say my last Commonwealth Games, it was

the most successful team that ever was and we produced the most medals,

something that I can remember the sport by and say goodbye properly.

When Grant Plenderleith was playing for Stenhousemuir

in the Scottish football leagues, he never dreamed

of competing in front of 50,000 people at Hampden.

That was made even less likely when he was released by the club

in 2012.

But that black cloud has a very shiny silver lining.

WHISTLE BLOWS

MUFFLED CROWD UTTERANCES

WHISTLE BLOWS

To get to be an international in football

was a million miles away from the level I was at.

I definitely looking forward to going to Hampden Park

and being part of that Team Scotland.

Two years ago, in March, I was playing football with Stenhousemuir.

There was a competition. They were trying to find

the fastest football player in the SFL.

The grand final was today and there was a cash prize.

I just had to be there.

Welcome to Livingston's Almondvale Stadium,

where you're about to witness something that probably

comes as close as you'll get to Scottish football's version

of a game show - The Dash For Cash.

-Contestant number one?

-Grant Plenderleith, Stenhousemuir.

It's the quiet man, Grant Plenderleith, the winner

with a late spurt.

It was after the race, with a couple of journalists,

and the question was asked,

"Have you ever thought about a career in athletics?"

I said I'd run years ago before I played football

and one of them said, "Have you ever thought about going back to it

"with Glasgow 2014 in two years' time?"

At that point I said I'd never really thought about it.

I went home that night, thought about it,

came down to the track here,

and ran open-graded two nights later.

That's where it all started for me.

CROWD CHANT

Training with athletics is ongoing.

It's even come down to weekends that I'm training all the time.

I've not got time to think about the football.

I thought there would be a period before the season started

in the winter hard-training months

that I would be thinking about football,

when all my mates were playing games on a Saturday,

when I'm sitting in the house or going to watch them.

But it's never happened yet so...

I'm glad I stuck with what I came to achieve.

When I started back at athletics a year and a half ago,

if you had told me I was going to be running in the Commonwealth Games

in a month's time, I would have told you, you're having a laugh.

It just shows that through hard work and dedication

and commitment to something, you really can achieve your target.

CHEERING

In football, with it being a team sport, or any team sport,

you could play a really good game

and if your team-mates don't perform and you get beat,

it feels quite bad.

You know you've tried your hardest and your team-mates haven't.

That's the joys of a team sport, whereas - and you've got

the reverse effect sometimes as well - you're maybe not playing

as good, but you've got everyone around you to pick you up.

Whereas athletics, if you have a good run, you win the race.

So it's completely down to you performing on the day

whereas football, you've got team-mates supporting you.

I like the athletics situation that I know

it's all down to what I do

and if I prepare myself correctly, I'll get a good race.

I became a lot more dedicated to myself,

and had to make a lot of strict cuts.

I wouldn't say it's a regret but my biggest miss is

in the last year since I've taken athletics serious again,

is I'm missing nights out with my pals.

I'm doing it for a reason, and they are good as well.

They're not constantly texting me, saying,

"Are you coming out tonight? We're all going out."

They give me space and freedom and they know

that it's for a good cause.

Thankfully now, I've got a reason to show that I've made the sacrifice

and it's paid off.

It was more like you could go out on a Saturday night,

have a drink, go up the town.

You would feel, the Sunday, you would struggle,

sometimes even the Monday.

Back to training was normally on a Tuesday

whereas you actually train Sunday, Monday,

so you can't afford three days to recover.

When I first started back, I did have a couple of drinks

every now and then and Sunday, Mondays, it was sessions lost

so these days I can't afford... Every session counts.

If you lose a session, you're going backwards.

When I started off, I was raw.

I got tips and coaching points and it's helped me progress

as an athlete.

If I see a guy I can pass the same tips onto,

then they will listen

and they're happy to listen to what I'm telling them,

as well as the coach.

There's definitely a lot of work to be done,

which is also a positive.

It means there's room for improvement,

keep bringing my times down, progressing to the next level.

Something I'm definitely looking forward to is going to Hampden Park

and being part of that Team Scotland,

The atmosphere will be incredible.

Here with a round-up of some of the other stories making the news

is Rhona McLeod.

The final faces have been added to Team Scotland

and every one of those 310 athletes is in the right frame of mind.

A lot of people have raised the bar

and put on their best performances

and made sure that they get into the team.

The atmosphere is beginning to build up,

especially after today's announcements.

Everybody is looking forward to the opening.

In terms of where our strength is,

it's back to where we've traditionally been,

in terms of the bowls,

the shooting, the swimming and now with athletics, going forward.

-COMMENTATOR:

-'This gymnastics team from Great Britain

'step forward to receive a bronze medal.'

That successful gymnastics Team GB from London

will be adversaries next month.

English star Louis Smith is relishing the battle.

It's going to be a clash of the titans.

You've got half of the Great Britain squad in the Scottish team,

half of them in the English team.

It's going to be a real clash.

I'm really excited.

I don't normally get excited in competitions.

You've got a bit of anxiety, a bit of nerves.

I've come back off doing nothing,

I've come out just to want to enjoy the Commonwealth Games,

get that feeling back again.

COMMENTATOR: 'It's going to be a glorious win.

'Mo Farah for Great Britain.

'It's gold!'

It's been confirmed that Mo Farah will compete in Glasgow

in the 5,000m and 10,000m.

There's good and there's bad news for fans at the Games.

Usain Bolt is a step closer to Glasgow

while fellow Jamaican Yohan Blake has definitely ruled himself out.

Here's a story that defines the word courage.

Wheelchair racer Meggan Dawson-Farrell

never considered a career in athletics

during her teenage years.

But she's overcome health issues and hardship

to take her place on the starting line at Glasgow 2014.

I'd gone through school thinking I couldn't do sport.

But the teenage Meggan Dawson-Farrell's life

was about to change forever,

thanks to a surprise from her mum.

My plan was going on holiday

and my mum told me she was taking me to sports camp.

It was to get kids with spina bifida into different things

and get them out there.

I got there eventually, kicking and screaming.

By the time I'd got there

and the days were over and my mum came back to pick me up,

I didn't want to go home because

I had so much fun.

Despite holding the Scottish record at every distance

in her class,

Meggan's biggest opponent, at times, has been her own body

with continued bouts of bad health stalling her career.

I carry a bacteria that's in my kidneys

that have been playing up recently.

The antibiotics for it aren't really working.

I'm having to go into hospital

soon to see what they can do about it.

It's kind of been up and down, in and out of training

because I've been poorly.

I've had a couple of injuries since then as well.

I was out training with my dad

and I managed to put my arm through my spoke in my chair.

I did a full rotation so I damaged my ligaments in my arm.

-Yep.

-You put this up again, didn't you?

You almost need to...not plan massively far ahead.

You have to have the goal of where you want to be

but having the flexibility of knowing that

every once in a while you might lose her for a couple of weeks.

As long as the trend is improving,

we're happy with how she does.

For Meggan, what we did, we looked at where we could have

the biggest impact on her performance.

We decided that her ability to keep her posture in her chair

and develop power would have an impact on her performance.

A lot of our programme is driven towards that.

The session wasn't that bad this morning.

He was nicer to me.

Usually it's a lot harder, although I was kind of dying quietly,

slowly but surely,

but I enjoy them anyway.

It's good to have hard sessions in there

as well as slightly easier ones.

You really are giving me over.

For once.

I'll just crawl, thank you.

If you're not enjoying what you're doing,

why are you doing it?

You have to enjoy it.

Make jokes about things!

I have goals.

We're eventually starting to work towards them again.

They're coming so fast now!

Erm, at the moment, because of having the injuries

and illness, I'd love to get in the final.

And then it's anyone's game.

I'd love to come home with a medal from a home Games.

But in the end, just being there

is an amazing experience in itself

because it'll be my first major competition.

COMMENTATOR: 'It all comes down to this.

'A chance to win an Olympic medal.'

If Meggan ever needed inspiration during

an early-morning weight session, she need not look too far.

Meggan is an inspiration for a lot of other athletes in here as well.

She enjoys the environment of who she trains with.

She really adds to the place. A good addition to the team here.

Even having them here,

even though they've won medals,

they're the just the same as I am,

they're here to train.

Yeah, it's nice having people to work with as well,

thinking, "They're lifting those weights,

"I'm going to be lifting them weights as well!"

It pushes you on a bit.

It's all worth it. Having to get up early in the morning,

coming to the gym and training in the rain

and all that, it's so much worth it

when you get the results that you want.

Because I go through so much rubbish, in the end,

I just... Having the sport keeps me going

and because I love it so much.

It's the one thing that does keep me so happy

because I love it so much.

That's it for this month's show.

We'll be back on July 20th.

That will be just three days before the Games begin.

From all of us here, bye-bye.