Commonwealth Games: Scotland's Ross Murdoch charms his way to 200m breaststroke bronze

Ross Murdoch didn't think he'd be in Birmingham. He didn't think he wanted to be. He certainly wasn't thinking about medals. About the adulation of the crowd. About wrapping himself in a Saltire again.

It was only December, having retired on the quiet, that he found himself feeling "like a piece of garbage; a mutant trapped in a sewer". Swimming had been his life since he was a wee boy, but he went 11 weeks without even getting into a pool.

If you'd told said "mutant" that, seven months later, he would have a slab of bronze hanging round his neck - a fourth Commonwealth Games medal - how would he have responded?

"I'd have said 'nah, it's awright pal, you can keep it'," Murdoch told BBC Sport Scotland. "I knew I was capable, but I didn't know I wanted it."

Just 15 minutes earlier, the 28-year-old had whipped the Sandwell Aquatics Centre crowd into such a lather that the two fellas who actually beat him in the 200m breaststroke were forgotten. And one was from little more than 100 miles up the road.

Murdoch does gallus like nobody else in Team Scotland. He'd get a piece at anyone's door, as yer granny might say. And from the moment he sauntered out from the call room, it was clear he was back in his happy place.

Sheathed in a knee-length jacket, teamed with beige skater shoes and big grey sports socks, he seemed energised by the attention. Everyone else could wait for him to clamber on to the blocks.

The weren't waiting once the gun went, though. Murdoch was fourth after 50m, and just hanging on to that position after the next two turns. Of course it was too much to ask. He's 28, geriatric for a swimmer, and had barely raced all year.

Then he got a sniff of an unlikely success, harnessed the energy in the arena, and kept his composure down the stretch for a scarcely believable bronze in an event that he wasn't even sure he'd bother entering as recently as early July.

"I did a decent time at the Scottish Open a few weeks back with a big head of hair and a massive beard, looking like a yeti," he said. "So I didn't think I'd be a million miles off.

"I thought if I got my heid doon, somewhere between third and fifth was there for me and it came out best-case scenario."

Murdoch's immediate reaction was primal, violently punching the water, dooking winner Zac Stubblety-Cook of Australia, and climbing on the lane rope to roar at the crowd, before embracing English silver medallist James Wilby.

Before long, he was burying his face in his hands.

"I've been emotional all day and trying to keep it under wraps but I just cannae believe I'm stood here, with my mum and dad watching for the first time since 2018, and Saltires in the crowd," he said.

"I'm just a wee boy fae the Vale. My dream was to swim the 50m breaststroke at the Games in Glasgow; that's all I ever hoped for. Now, 10 years later, I've been to three, I've got four medals... it's just surreal.

"I told you I'd cry and I went back to the team room, met wee Toni Shaw, and, yeah, I shed a tear. But the job's not finished."

Not quite. Murdoch goes in the 100m over the next couple of days. It will likely be the last ever time he competes. And who would wager against him going out in style?

Murdoch's was one of three bronze medals on a fine evening for a Scotland team whose relative inexperience had diluted pre-meet expectations.

Katie Shanahan started it in the 400m individual medley. The 18-year-old from Bishopbriggs was the slowest qualifier but was the third fastest when it mattered, having started at a furious lick before hanging on to snatch a medal.

The Games debutant clasped her hand over her mouth in shock, and walked away from poolside in a daze.

"I can't believe it," she told BBC Sport Scotland, as tears started to fall. "I'm so, so happy and I literally don't know what to say.

"It hurt so much in the last 50m and I could feel all the girls coming up behind me. But I could hear the crowd cheering me on and I was thinking about nothing else but getting a hand on the wall."

'Wee' Toni Shaw then found herself in a similar situation in the 100m S9 freestyle shortly afterwards.

The 18-year-old was the first Scot to claim a medal at last summer's Paralympics and just held on to third place in the closing stages to claim another bronze.

"I'm absolutely buzzing. I'm just so excited to get one of the toy bulls," she told BBC Sport Scotland.

"There were so many girls who went similar times in the semis so I'm happy to be on the right side of the finish."