At the Junior/U23 European Track Championships in Portugal last week, Scotland’s up and coming young sprinters made their mark winning four medals between them.

Both members of Team Scotland at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, where they came an impressive fourth in the Team Sprint, they went on to enjoy individual European success at the Anadia velodrome.

On day four of the championships, Oxfordshire based Scot John Paul was crowned junior Sprint champion, beating German rival Max Niederlag two-nil in the gold medal ride-off. He followed this up on the final day with another impressive gold in the junior Keirin. This ranks as the best performance of the 18 year old’s career to date.

Meanwhile Callum Skinner from Edinburgh got his championships off to a great start winning silver in the U23 Team Sprint, just missing out on gold to Germany. He then bagged bronze in the U23 Sprint competition on day four, beating Philipp Thiele of Germany two-one in the bronze medal ride-off. After his final a delighted Skinner tweeted: “European under 23 sprint bronze medallist, very, very happy!!!

However the final day of competition was more painful for Callum when he crashed out of the U23 Keirin. Skinner described his spill later on Twitter: “Crashed into a Russian at 75kph at the top of the track, all scratched up but ok, decided to scratch the minor final. Good champs overall…”

Both men’s performances augur well for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014.