Team Scotland continues to ramp up the preparations for the Games as the individual sports settle into their training schedules in Delhi.

Scotland’s three weightlifters worked up a sweat in the training venue at the Athletes’ Village today as they get ready for their competition which begins next week.
Graeme Kane, Peter Kirkbride and Tommy Yule are competing in the 77kg, 94kg and 105kg categories respectively and all three are setting their sights on a medal in Delhi.
Yule is the reigning British Champion, Scottish Champion and picked up bronzes medal in both of the last two Commonwealth Games in Melbourne and Manchester. He said: “I am aiming to win a medal, that’s why I am here. If I can do what I’ve been doing in training and perform then it is realistic.
“In terms of what colour or medal, that’s impossible to say – I can’t predict what others are going to do on the day but I am going to do my best and hopefully I’ll be in amongst them for a medal.”
All competitors in weightlifting must take part in both the ‘snatch’ and ‘clean and jerk’ disciplines with medals being awarded from a combined score.
Kane, who is the current U23 Total Record holder and competed at the 2004 Commonwealth Youth Games, is aware of the many important elements in weightlifting that can affect performance.
“We need to make sure that our body weight doesn’t drop too far because we need as much strength as possible. We’ll normally train two or three kilograms above our own body weight. We also have to watch our fluid intake the night before but other than that, I trust my coach completely so I don’t question anything he asks me to do and it always pays off in the end”, he explained.
Two hours of training today at the on-site facility in and coach Charles Hamilton is happy with the progress being made. Hamilton said, “This is our second session, yesterday was just a light, break-in session. Peter and Graeme are young and can do a bit more training than Tommy, but I am sure his experience will rub off on the guys and hopefully we’ll produce the best results so far.
“Preparations before we came out were great, Peter did personal bests the week before we flew out and Graeme has come back from injury. Tommy has a few niggles but he’ll pull it out on the day.”
The team are operating a routine of two days training then one rest day in the days leading up to competition.
Meanwhile, both the men’s and women’s hockey teams had their first training sessions today at the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium. The men will face Canada tomorrow morning in a practice match while the women continue their training before they tackle Malaysia on Friday night.
The gymnasts also sprung into training today at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium, the venue where the gymnastics competition will be hosted at Games time. Seeing the field of play for the first time, Artistic Gymnast Jordon Lipton commented: “I’m so excited! This is absolutely amazing and it makes it all seem so real. This will be by far the biggest venue I’ve ever competed in and I just can’t wait to get up on the podium and look out to the crowd.”