They were the first athletes selected for Youth Team Scotland and now lawn bowlers Carla Banks and Darren Weir will also be the first Scottish athletes onto the field of play as the Samoa 2015 Commonwealth Youth Games begin tomorrow.

Seventeen members of Youth Team Scotland are in action on day one, and after the excitement of last night’s opening ceremony at Apia Park Stadium, all are raring to go. Carla and Darren go in their respective singles events and, with an 8am start for their first of four group matches on the opening day, they will get Scotland’s Youth Games campaign underway.

“It was great walking into the opening ceremony with the massive crowd and everyone shouting for Scotland,” said Carla. “It will be nice to have some of that support tomorrow as well. My Mum and Dad are out here and without them I probably would have never started playing bowls, never mind coming all the way to the other side of the world playing the sport. It would be great if I can put in a good performance first thing and have a good start to the day.”

Darren added: “It feels good to be one of the first to compete, I’m pretty excited about tomorrow. We’ve had four days preparing and I feel ready to start competing. There are a lot of different countries there so it should be interesting, with four games tomorrow in the group stages. I’ve been playing quite well in practice so I quite fancy my chances but we’ll just have to see what happens tomorrow because it’s all on the day.”

Having carried the flag into last night’s opening ceremony swimmer Craig Mclean goes in two individual events and the medley relay with five of the six swimming squad in action in the pool. Discus thrower George Evans and weightlifter Biatrice Gabell have finals on the opening day, while sprinters Alisha Rees and Cameron Tindle will be looking to progress through the rounds to their respective 100m finals.

Also on day one are the boxing quarter finals and there is first round action in squash and tennis.

All the Youth Team Scotland news will appear here throughout the Games. For up to the minute results follow us on Twitter @Team_Scotland