sport news Duncan Scott is taking inspiration from his sporting icons including Michael ... trends now
Duncan Scott is swimming through the list of his favourite sportsmen. He loves Tom Brady, the NFL legend. LeBron James, too, the basketball icon. Tiger Woods is his favourite golfer. Michael Phelps from his own sport.
He’s talked before, too, of his admiration of Andy Murray, who grew up 20 miles down the road from Scott’s hometown of Alloa and with whom he shared the training courts at the University of Stirling as a junior tennis player.
All of them, though, have one thing in common. They all have the one thing Scott admires above all else when it comes to sporting achievement.
‘My favourite athletes are the ones who showed longevity over decades, which is what makes them so inspiring,’ says Scott who will head to his third Olympic Games in Paris this summer as part of Team GB’s swimming team announced on Tuesday.
‘Longevity is so important. That kind of pursuit of continual improvement. For me, that’s just my way of life. For some people it might be sacrifices but that is just how my life is and I don’t even see it as sacrifices anymore.
Duncan Scott is Team GB's most prolific Olympian at a single games - winning four medals in 2020
Scott won one gold and three silver medals at Tokyo 2020 and is going for more in Paris
Scott says he has 'five great opportunities' to go one better and set a new record high in Paris
‘What I find so fascinating about LeBron is he was landing a certain way after doing certain jump shots and was like “that’s going to affect my longevity, the numbers I can up later in my career”.
‘There’s plenty that have shown that longevity and I always think they are associated with some of the greats of the sport.’
Scott’s only 26 but he’s beginning to show that longevity and success, too. He’s not at the stage yet, like LeBron, to be tweaking his technique to squeeze out some more years but he is about to head to his third Olympic Games. He returned from Tokyo three years ago as the first Brit ever to win four medals at a single Games.
He was part of the 4x200m freestyle relay team with Tom Dean, James Guy and Matt Richards that clinched gold in Tokyo, just 0.03 seconds off the world record while also claiming silver in the 200m freestyle, the 200m medley and 4x100m
