With just under eight months to go until the Commonwealth Youth Games open in Samoa on 5th September, all sports specific selection policies have now been completed and, only 12 days into the selection period, our young athletes are already rising to the challenge of booking a place on Youth Team Scotland.

Promising results for Squash at the Scottish Junior Open saw Scottish players lift both girls’ and boys’ U19 titles and there was an unprecedented response to the announcement of qualifying events for Lawn Bowls with 125 players registering to compete.

Commonwealth Games Scotland (CGS) has worked with the governing bodies of all eight individual sports on the Samoa 2015 programme to develop these policies, which detail procedures and standards specific to each sport. Alongside the criteria laid down in the General Selection Policy, published by CGS in October last year, the policies provide athletes and coaches with a full picture of exactly what is required to be nominated for selection.

Participation in the six team men’s and women’s Rugby 7s tournaments is by invitation and an unprecedented 19 countries have expressed an interest in competing. Entries will be confirmed by Samoa 2015 organisers at a later date.

Elinor Middlemiss, Games Team Operations Manager, said: “I am pleased to confirm that all the sports selection policies and standards have been finalised. With the selection window now open, athletes know exactly what they must do to be nominated for the team.

“We wish everyone the very best of luck with their training and competition over the coming months. A number of Team Scotland athletes in Glasgow had their first experience of Commonwealth competition at previous Youth Games and I’m sure athletes targeting Samoa 2015 will take inspiration from their success.”

The finalised selection policies and standards are available to download from the Youth Games section of this website or the website of the relevant sports governing bodies.

The following nine sports will be on the programme at Samoa 2015:

Archery

Athletics

Boxing

Lawn Bowls

Rugby 7s

Squash

Swimming

Tennis

Weightlifting

All nominations for selection will be made to CGS before 25 June with selected athletes for each sport announced by 30 June 2015.