Scottish Athletics seeking more opportunities for athletes to compete for the home country rather than GB

Scottish athletes could compete for their home country rather than Great Britain at European level – should a proposal being explored by Scottish Athletics come to fruition.

The governing body for the sport north of the border has written to European Athletics about the possibility of Scotland, and the other home nations, competing independently.

Current discussions are said to relate to European competition only – including the cross country championships plus indoor and outdoor championships – but not global events such as the Olympics or world championships.

"We recently launched our new strategy document entitled 'Building a Culture of Success'. Enshrined within that document is a principle to try and create more opportunities for Scottish athletes to compete as Scotland at European level," said Scottish Athletics chief executive Mark Munro.

"Our chair, Ian Beattie, and I attended the European Athletics Convention in Lausanne recently and in writing to thank them we asked if the possibility could be explored for Scotland – and the other home nations England, Wales and Northern Ireland – to compete at the likes of the Euro Cross Country Champs (every year) and the European Champs (indoors and outdoors, every two years).

"This has been a topic of discussion by home nations and UK Athletics for the past 18 months or so.

"We do not envisage any change to the GB team for world championships and Olympics events in their two-year and four-year cycles."

Munro added: "The landscape in sport is always changing and there are other models in British sport of Scotland competing at European level and then contributing athletes/players to GB teams, so we will look at how that framework applies, too."