Borders Paralympic swimming gold medallist Stephen Clegg sums up his 'perfect year'

Clegg, 29, of Newcastleton, revealed that three years of hard preparation under the guidance of dedicated coaches had helped him achieve his dream, with the pool star having previously landed S12 100m butterfly silver and 100m freestyle and backstroke bronze at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.

“My year was as close to perfect as I could have hoped for, for sure,” said Clegg, speaking at last week’s Scottish Sports Awards.

"Going into Tokyo I had a lot of pressure on myself to win gold and I fell short of that.

"So every day of the last three years has been spent on rectifying the mistakes I made in Tokyo and minimising the margin of error that I could allow myself to have.

"And it worked out great. It was a great relief to be able to pay back all the hard work that my team had put in around me.

"And all the sacrifices they had made as well as me.

"Often in sport people look at the athlete and all the sacrifices that they have to make.

"But the coaches and support team around them are often overlooked and they make the same amount of sacrifices.

"For me it’s a great way to pay tribute to their hard work and thank them for what they’ve done.”

Clegg is also greatly looking forward to competing at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

The Borders ace medalled at the previous staging of the event in Birmingham two years ago, when he landed silver in the S13 50m freestyle.

Clegg added: “I’ve had the pleasure of going to Birmingham (for the 2022 Commonwealth Games) and that was an incredible experience.

"It was as close to a ‘home games’ experience I had anticipated of getting. So to have this chance of going to compete in Glasgow is going to be incredible.

"And hopefully I can get one-hundredth closer to that gold medal than I did in Birmingham and hopefully be able to listen to Flower of Scotland which would be a very emotional moment to say the least.”