As the Scottish nation waits in anticipation for the Commonwealth Games to take place in Glasgow this summer. Excitement grows around Fife, as the region prepares for three of its athletes to take to the international stage.
Owen Miller, Ben Sandilands, and Steven Bryce will be competing in the T20 Para Athletics competition at the Commonwealth Games, with all three having been coached by Steve Doig, currently training out of Fife Athletics Club, they are an example of the impact that an inclusive community can have.
Having started working with Ben in 2012, Owen in 2015, and Steven in 2022, Steve and the rest of the coaches at Fife Athletics Club have been able to see the journey that all the athletes have gone through.
These journeys have been amazing, with all three athletes having competed at World, European and National championships.
The highlight of these journeys undoubtably being Owen and Ben winning back–to– back T20 1500m Paralympic Gold medals at the rescheduled 2020 Tokyo and 2024 Paris Summer Paralympic Games, Steve commented: “In two successive Paralympic Games, our small inclusive training group has produced two separate gold medallists in the 1500m T20. Without the support of numerous athletes, parents and coaching helpers, neither of these fantastic achievements would have happened.”
Having made a niche for himself in the coaching scene, working with some of the world’s top T20 athletes, Steve has put a lot of it down to Fife Athletics Club’s drive to be inclusive and accessible, he said: “The beauty of our group is that we have a lot of athletes who are prepared to help out. The group that Ben and Stephen are in have one or two athletes who help with the pacing and help them manage the session. Owen who has returned to the group, has a mainstream athlete who runs with him and keeps an eye on his session.”
Ben, Owen, and Steven’s journeys’ haven’t been without difficulty though, with all three athletes recently having had injury troubles which threatened to cast doubt over their availability to represent Team Scotland at Glasgow 2026.
Having been supported by sportscotland’s Institute of Sport throughout their careers, either out of Dundee Regional Performance Centre, or Glasgow International Arena, all three of the athletes have been provided with a bespoke, inclusive and accessible service.
With all three of the athletes competing in the Men’s T20 1500m this summer in Glasgow, it has been important to ensure that their training loads are monitored, as they are often running large quantities of miles in a week, which has resulted in injuries such as stress fractures and torn hamstrings.
This is an area where sportscotland’s Institute of Sport have worked with the athletes. With Dr Cian McGinley, a Performance Physiologist working closely with Owen over the last couple of years.
Having received medical advice, to restrict the amount of running that Owen was doing in a training week, Cian worked as part of a multi disciplined team, within sportscotland’s Institute of Sport, to look at new ways that they could reduce the amount, whilst maintaining fitness, he said: “We looked at different ways of training that wasn’t running, that would provide a fitness benefit.”
“With Owen, what we had settled on once he was fit enough to start doing these kinds of things was aqua jogging and cross training on the elliptical machine.”
With many long-distance track athletes often running upwards of six times a week, it was a change to Owen’s training programme, reducing to one day, and gradually building up to three, with the rest of his training being done in the gym, on an elliptical machine or aqua jogging in the swimming pool. However, Steve, could see the benefits of the work that the team at sportscotland’s Institute of Sport had done, he said: “The beauty of this is that he is still doing a lot of the training, that before he was doing through running. So, a lot of that aerobic work is now in the pool or on a cross trainer, so having significantly less impact, or no impact. So, he is being able to carry forward the training load that we would want, but with far less actual impact, and because it’s bone stress injuries he has had, that is very important.”
In hindsight it is clear that Fife Athletics Club had something special happening, with a crop of athletes that included Ben, Owen and Steven in their ranks, however, Steve remembers the moment it became clear, he said: “The three of them got picked for the World Championships in 2023, so just to get all three of them in a team, and now we have replicated that this year with the Commonwealth Games.” Steve said.
Throughout his career, Steve has had some amazing achievements when coaching, which has resulted in his hard work and dedication being recognised, such as winning Coach of the Year at sportscotland’s Scottish Sports Awards. This hard work will be culminating this summer, having been announced as part of Team Scotland’s coaching team, he said: “I’m incredibly proud, it’s not an opportunity that I had ever thought I would get. But I would also have said, I’ve coached two Paralympic champions, you know, it’s very fortunate that this has happened.”
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