DUNCAN Scott admits that he is going into the unknown this week when he takes on the European Short-Course Championships, which begin in Copenhagen tomorrow. The 20 year-old has had a remarkable couple of years, picking up relay medals at the Olympic Games, World Championships and European Championships.

But short-course swimming is a whole new ball game for the University of Stirling swimmer. He warmed-up for the European Championships by competing in the Scottish Short-Course Championships in Edinburgh over the weekend, at which he grabbed a victory in the 200m individual medley over his Scotland teammate, Dan Wallace, and that has left him feeling good about his upcoming challenge.

“I’m looking forward to the Europeans – at the Scottish, I did my fastest IM without being tapered or shaved so I’m looking forward to getting to Copenhagen,” he said. “But I’ve never done a senior international short-course event so I’m not sure what to expect.

“I’m doing quite a lot of events in Copenhagen so I’m just looking to have a bit of fun and see what I can do. And I think it’s a good chance for me to go out there and swim some best times because this will be my first major short-course meet so it’ll be good to see how I get on.”

All of Scott’s major championship medals to date have come as part of a relay team and while he admits that while picking up some individual silverware over the next week would be nice, it is not the be all and end all.

“It would obviously be nice to win an individual medal but I don’t even know who else is on the entry list,” he said.

“You always get some people who you’ve never heard of swimming ridiculously fast because they’re absolute powerhouses so it’ll be tough.”

This event is as much about fine tuning preparations for the 2018 Commonwealth Games, which begin in less than four months and Scott is cognisant of the fact that there is no better place to practice than in a competitive environment.

“I’ll probably be racing some people I’ve never heard of so I don’t know how they’re going to race or what kind of shape they’ll be in but that’s the whole point of racing – it gives you more experience and at the age of 20, that’s exactly what I’m needing.

“I’m still not all that experienced so it’s all about gaining more and more of that.”

Meanwhile Hannah Miley continues to defy the years. She is not racing at the European Championships this week preferring instead to continue her Gold Coast 2018 preparation in the UK at a long-course meet in Sheffield this weekend.

Miley won a hat-trick of titles at the Scottish Championships but she was beaten into second in the 200m butterfly by 16-year-old prodigy, Keanna MacInnes, who broke Miley’s Scottish record in the process. However, Miley was far from disheartened to see a youngster take the competition to her.

“That just makes me work harder and that’s what I love about sport – rising to the challenge,” she said.