After directing all her highflying momentum towards the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, last week Jade Nimmo was revealed as one of the first athletes selected to represent Team Scotland.

“It is amazing to be selected! I found out through an email and I immediately tried ringing my Mum but I couldn’t get through to her because she is out of the country. So I went for a celebratory lunch with some friends. It’s such a relief to be selected this early.”

As the Scottish record holder for Long Jump, Jade is a prodigy of the Delhi 2010 Achieve  programme, an initiative that gave up-and-coming athletes the opportunity to experience the Games environment first hand. “I can’t believe Achieve was three years ago, it really was a once in a life time opportunity. It was so cool to fly out to India and look inside the village and look around the venues, see behind the scenes and speak to the athletes. It has prepared me for what sort of things to expect next year.”

She continued, “Actually in saying that, I still won’t fully know what to expect until it comes around. But I’m really enjoying the hype around it so far and I’m buzzing to hear the noise around Hamden Park.”

Sponsored by Search Consultancy, the Achieve programme will run again for Glasgow 2014- watch the Achieve 2014 promotional video starring Jade on the link below.

Aged 22 and living in Falkirk, Jade started her sporting life as a gymnast but soon swapped the bars for the track at the age of 14 when she was inspired by Kelly Holmes’ Olympic performances. The move from gymnastics to Long Jump was a smooth one, as Jade found the mix of her previous gymnastics training and skills and her naturally fast running ability, formed a nice combination when jumping into sand.

However, Jade does not spend all the day in the sandpit; she is enrolled at Edinburgh Napier University as a part-time student, to give a balance between studying and her training regime.

However, to reach this point Jade has not only committed to hours in the gym and on the track, she also sacrificed a Western Kentucky athletic scholarship: “I left Scotland to go and study in America but I made the decision to come back home. Out there the collegiate system is all about point scoring and I am fully focused on Glasgow 2014, so it was just not the right environment for me. It is a better training situation here.”

A few months back, during the sunny Scottish summer, Jade got the opportunity to rub shoulders with Scottish legend, Chris Hoy at the “One Year To Go” to Glasgow 2014 Ticketing Launch on Buchanan Street. Not only do they share the same birthday, they also share the same desire to win.

“This year I’ve been really consistent, I will go into a hard winters training and then I can hopefully repeat what I’ve done this year and put myself in medal contention, with gold being the ultimate aim.”
With team selection confirmed, it is now time to get down to some hard work and re-focus, if she is to realise her goal in Glasgow. Let’s hope Jade will be jumping for joy next July!

Achieve 2014 Promotional Video featuring Jade
You can follow Jade on Twitter @JadeNimmo

Photo Credit: Alister Devine