JAKE Wightman donned a saltire and a ‘See you, Jimmy’ wig as he announced himself as the new star of Scottish middle-distance running - then joked that the ginger hair was the same hue as his sister Martha’s. The 23-year-old, born in Nottingham but raised and schooled in Edinburgh by two former athletes, claimed the nation’s third athletics medal of the games, a bronze, in the 1500m on the final day of the track and field programme as the overall Team Scotland total in the Gold Coast edged onto 43 with one day remaining. While there was only one more Scottish medal of the day, another bronze, this time for Kirsty Gilmour in the women’s singles badminton, Scotland are just ten shy of their tally from Glasgow 2014 four years ago and Wightman’s was a real tartan special, the first Commonwealth medal by a Scot over this distance since James Robson in Edmonton in 1978.

Once employed inputting data for athletics statistics website Power of 10, now Wightman simply re-writes record books for a living. “Who gave me the flag? It was my family around the corner,” said Wightman. “My sister [Martha] is ginger so I’m surprised this isn’t her hair!

“The crowd were great on that victory lap,” he added. “There were so many Scottish Saltires around. It was nice to see so many fans and it was nice to know it wasn’t a complete Aussie crowd. I didn’t know they were going to give me the hat but if the opportunity is there to put it on I’ll do it. I didn’t go full Mark Dry [the hammer thrower] and put the kilt on – my legs can’t quite pull that off.”

Wightman, squeezed into fourth in the 800m earlier in the championships, said that had only made him more desperate not to suffer the same fate. While he had been unable to catch Kenyan runners Elijah Manangoi and Timothy Cheruiyot in the final straight, he felt he had now proved that he could double up in both the 800m and 1500m like his hero Seb Coe, who presented him with his bronze medal.

“A medal was what I came to get so I’m ecstatic to get that,” he said. “The biggest outcome is I know I can double up in champs. When I came away with fourth in the 800, you just leave the stadium while this time you get to do your victory lap, get your medal, have the medal the ceremony. But you’re treated like nothing when you come fourth. So I definitely wanted to make sure I came with all that this time and I’m so glad to go home with something to show from these champs. It’s great to have a part in history and hopefully it starts the ball rolling for middle-distance running again.”

Scotland finished with four athletics medals in all – Wightman, Dry in the hammer, Maria Lyle and flagbearer Eilidh Doyle, which matched their tally from Glasgow 2014. That still meant that some were disappointed, not least Eilish McColgan who said she had struggled in the heat en route to a sixth place finish in the 5000m to the extent that she thought she may be unable to finish the race. “I still feel a bit strange right now.,” said McColgan. “I train in heat [in Doha] so I’m used to it. So I don’t know. I don’t usually feel like this after a race.

“With eight laps to go I felt pretty flat and tired,” she added. “With four laps to go, I seriously thought: “I don’t know if I’m going to make it…” Then I came back a bit towards the end, managed to plough through. Possibly running the 1500 impacted on it. But I needed some races to get into the 5k.”

The women’s 4x400m team of Eilidh Doyle, Kirsten McAslan, Lynsey Sharp and Zoey Clark could do no better than sixth, even if that pill was sugared somewhat by a new national record. “It was national record so we can’t be too disappointed,” she said.

“It would have been great to get that fifth one so we did better than Glasgow,” said Doyle. “But you see the strength of Australia and Jamaica and South Africa, all these countries. The track and field has been one of the toughest competitions to win medals in. I was heartbroken for Jake to not get a medal in the 800 so to get one here is fantastic.”