Barely a few days remain until the Commonwealth Games get underway with athletes from all around the world busy fine-tuning preparations on Australia’s Gold Coast. We’ve already taken a look at our ten to watch but the XXI Commonwealth Games will also see a whole host of new talent come to the fore when competition gets underway on Thursday. So without further ado, here are our ten emerging talents to keep an eye on both now and in the future.
Lauren Bate is in the infancy of her cycling career but that hasn’t stopped her already tasting success on the big stage.
Indeed 2017 saw two world junior medals added to the 18-year-old’s palmares, backing up team sprint bronze with individual silver in Italy last year to add to her four junior European medals.
Gymnast Latalia Bevan’s career has already been full of promise, with plenty of big-competition experience despite only just switching from junior to senior level.
A School Games veteran, the 17-year-old helped Great Britain to silver in the Olympic Hopes Cup en route to her first Commonwealth Games.
Cycling was a sport Jack Carlin only got into because of rehab and injury but now it’s taken the 20-year-old to his very first Commonwealth Games.
The Scot arrives on the Gold Coast with plenty of success on his palmares too, becoming a double World Championships medallist in 2018 to add to his two World Cup gold medals.
Zoey Clark was part of the British 4x400m relay team that won silver at the 2017 World Championships, celebrating a first global medal on the home track. And the home success continued into 2018 for the 23-year-old, winning relay bronze at the World Indoor Championships, in Birmingham.
Success has followed Eleanor Dickinson around in her nascent career – already a World Championship silver medallist before reaching her 20
birthday.
That came earlier this year in the team pursuit in Apeldoorn, teaming up with Emily Nelson, Laura Kenny, Katie Archibald and Elinor Barker – the latter two forming Scottish and Welsh opposition respectively on the Gold Coast.
Eleven years and 286 days – that’s how old Welsh table tennis starlet Anna Hursey will be at the opening ceremony of her Commonwealth Games debut. Not even born when the Games were last held in Australia, in 2006, Hursey is thought to be the youngest person to represent Wales at any sport at senior level.