A SPORTSMAN who heartbreakingly missed out on the Commonwealth Games as a youngster has scooped five gold medals and a world record… nearly half a century later.
Ian McKay was a talented swimmer, diver and then gymnast in his youth, before an accident saw him in hospital for months, meaning he missed out on the chance to go to Edmonton in 1978.
Now, nearly 50 years later, he has medals round his neck after making a splash at the European Aquatics Masters Championships – and even returned home with a world record.
“Everybody in the United States, to be a record breaker, they are 6ft 6in, flippers for feet, size 15 feet and massive hands like Michael Phelps.
“They are all huge and they have all been at the level in their elite years to be able to do it in their masters years.
“I only had a dream to make the top 10 in the world.
Ian retired from running his own roofing business in the west of Scotland in 2016 and moved to East Lothian.
Since then, the 70-year-old has kept active, regularly surfing at Pease Bay and taking to the pool at North Berwick Sports Centre.
The father-of-four and grandfather-of-four had enjoyed swimming as a youth before making the move into springboard diving.
Then, he turned his hand to gymnastics but saw his chances of going to the Commonwealth Games in Canada cruelly dashed when he fell 50 feet off a roof and spent “six months in full traction and another six months in plaster”.
Upon retiring, he underwent double shoulder surgery but has since recovered and made it to the top of the 70-74-year-old category in the pool.
Last month, in Bratislava, Slovakia, he smashed the European record in the 50m freestyle in a time of 27.98 seconds.
Then, he was part of the British team securing gold in the 4x50m freestyle relay team in the 280+ years category, racing alongside Mark Jones (born in 1963), Keith Johnston (1959) and Alastair MacGregor (1945).
Not content with that, the quartet then took gold in the 4x50m individual medley (IM) in the same category.
The icing on the cake was a European and world record in the 50m butterfly – with his time of 29.60 seconds seeing him finish more than seven seconds clear of his nearest rival.
Then, on the final day, he added gold medal number five with a first-place finish in the 100m freestyle.
And the Whitekirk resident is in no mood to hang up the goggles and swimming cap just yet.
He said: “There are a few chapters still to be written.”
© East Lothian Courier
