Perth swimmer Duncan Scott admitted he had to pinch himself in amazement after winning gold at the Youth Olympic Games.
In the first two days of competition, Duncan had found the going tough in Nanjing with a fourth-place finish in the men’s 200m freestyle final on Monday, and failing to qualify for the 200m individual medley showpiece that same day.
But just 24 hours later the 17-year-old was climbing the top step of the podium after helping Team GB win men’s 4x100m freestyle relay gold.
The Team GB quartet of Scott, Luke Greenbank, Martyn Walton and Miles Munro led from start to finish to touch home in 3:21.19 minutes. Strathallan School pupil Scott admitted he was lost for words after becoming a Youth Olympic champion.
“I am so happy that we have won the gold medal and I can’t quite believe it to be honest,” said Scott, who swam the first leg.
“We knew we had a chance going into it as Great Britain won the same gold at the European Junior Championships earlier in the year but to have an Olympic gold too is amazing.
“We all dug deep and gave it everything we had because we knew it was going to be tough and we were going to had to fight for it.
“We have all had a tough week so far but this is a great result and one we can all be really pleased with.
“There is also a mini competition between the boys and girls in Team GB and they won two silver medals the day before so we had to come out and win gold really.”
There was double reason for Scott to celebrate yesterday as he also booked his spot in today’s 50m freestyle final.
“It was a good day because I also qualified for the 50m freestyle so hopefully I can have more success in that too,” he added.
“This has given me loads of confidence now and I am really looking forward to it now.”