By Megan Armitage
Scotland's most decorated Olympian Duncan Scott is flying the flag for grassroots social impact causes by supporting access to local leisure centres, following his Paris 2024 success.
The 27-year-old won 4x200m freestyle relay gold and 200m individual medley silver in the French capital to take his Olympic medal tally up to eight, surpassing Sir Chris Hoy for the most of any Scottish athlete.
The swimmer is using his platform as an Olympian, alongside many athletes being supported by the National Lottery’s ChangeMakers initiative which is enabling them to give back to causes that are personal to them, to speak out on the importance of accessible facilities to guarantee that every child and adult has the opportunity to learn how to swim.
"Post Covid and with other issues, there have been more and more pool closures up and down the country," he said.
"Leisure centre programmes are not just aimed at kids. Being young is an advantage when getting someone safe and confident in water but as an adult, who has never swum before, it's never against you.
"Seeing first hand, how many people are loving learning to swim and are enrolled in programmes because of watching the Olympic Games is great.
"That's the beauty of the Olympics, it provides the perfect inspiration for people to pick up a sport they've never really tried before."
(Image: SWP-2206)
Scott revealed that he had mixed emotions towards his third Olympic experience, missing out on medals in the men's 4x100m freestyle relay and individual 200m freestyle, the latter by just 0.08 seconds.
But after roaring back to the top of the podium in the men's 4x200m freestyle, clinching a historic gold alongside James Guy, Tom Dean and Matt Richard, there was undoubtable pride to take away.
"I didn't have a great start to the meet," he said. "The men's 4x100m was a little bit underwhelming as we didn't quite perform as we'd have liked to.
"And then the 200m free, narrowly missing out on the wall and what could have been a great result for myself.
"But I finished the week really well, winning the 4x200m relay with the same boys and a silver in the 200m IM so I'm really happy."
Scott is one of more than 100 athletes who have become National Lottery ‘ChangeMakers’ after the Paris 2024 Olympics.
The ChangeMaker initiative is a partnership between The National Lottery’s operator, Allwyn, Team GB, ParalympicsGB and UK Sport designed to ensure sustained social impact that delivers long term for communities.
And with a passion for ensuring the next generation of children can be safe in the water, Scott is hailing the social and community pull that local leisure centres provide.
"I grew up loving sport and swimming was the one that I enjoyed doing so I put in the most time," he added.
"But it's not just the sport that does that, it could be the people that are a part of swimming, the coaches, people or volunteers that make the swimming community tick. It's that social aspect.
"The people who come to these are the people returning back from injury, or starting new clubs or it could be an elderly person for the social side.
"I think that's so special when you come to these communities and leisure centres in the sense that there's so many added things other than just swimming. It's a grassroots level community hub."
“I’ve already received so much support as an athlete from The National Lottery, and now they are taking it to the next level with ChangeMakers to support athletes to be active in social impact causes, which is so important to us.”
The ChangeMaker initiative is a partnership between The National Lottery’s operator, Allwyn, Team GB, ParalympicsGB and UK Sport to support Great Britain’s athletes to make a positive difference to social impact projects they are passionate about.
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