AFTER the high of competitive success there is frequently a low and as Kirsty Gilmour seeks to get back into competitive mode the challenge is even bigger after her second successive historic performance at a Commonwealth Games.
In her home city of Glasgow four years ago she was the first Scottish singles player to contest a badminton final when she claimed the last of Scotland’s record 53 medals, while this time she became the first Scot to win individual medals at two Commonwealth Games.
Whereas in 2014 she had three weeks to recover and still suffered a shock first-round defeat at the ensuing World Championships to Germany’s Karin Schnaase, Gilmour has only had a few days back in Scotland before she heads to Spain in the early hours of tomorrow morning to contest the European Championships where she is seeded to meet two-time Olympic champion Carolina Marin in the final for the third successive year.
Since she is likely to meet last year’s bronze medallist Mette Poulsen in her first match, the dangers are obvious and Gilmour admits that she has considerable work to do to get into the right frame of mind.
“It sounds silly to say, but collectively as a whole experience this Commonwealth Games has been the best team thing I’ve ever been a part of,” she said. “I’m not the most emotional of people I’d say, but I was not mentally or emotionally ready to leave the village after the closing ceremony. I knew it was going to happen, but I cried probably on eight separate occasions that day. It was just all over and everything was coming out I was on such a come down and I still am.”
She is hopeful that the nature of her schedule will work in her favour, however, giving her minimal time to wallow in that sense of post-Games let down.
“In a way it’s quite nice that it’s almost just back to back and there’s not really that much time to stop and think about it. It’s just coming into a dip and straight back out and we’re just going to push on,” said Gilmour.
She also believes that all she has been through since the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, overcoming a career-threatening knee injury before returning to action last year to reach a World Championship quarter-final, then achieving one of her career goals by winning the Scottish Open Grand Prix, will stand her in good stead.
“Karin was so experienced, I was aware that it would be a hard match [at the 2014 World Championships], although I had expectations of myself to win it. However, I’ve worked hard on managing those expectations down the years and I’m not 20 anymore, so I’ve felt that sense of ‘I should win this,’ often enough to quash it,” she said.
Gilmour is among three Scots in action in Huelva this week, with Adam Hall and Alex Dunn also getting their European Championship campaign underway on the second day of competition, facing Dutch pair Jelle Maas and Robin Tabeling in the first round of the men’s doubles.
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