Here’s hoping success on track is a piece of cake for Scots… just don’t expect the BBC to be tuned in!

Jemma Reekie was fourth at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo and three years later won silver at the World Indoors in front of a home crowd in Glasgow.

Unfortunately, the 2024 Olympics in Paris didn’t go to plan but the redoubtable Reekie soon picked herself up to race in the women’s 800m again.

Which is why the Scot lined up for a key Diamond League meeting in early September that year. Keely Hodgkinson was absent but the rest of the field was of the level to be expected in a World Championship final.

As it transpired, Friday night football was scheduled in the Scottish Championship. Dunfermline were at home and BBC Scotland Sport social media feeds were preoccupied with a birthday cake presentation featuring their reporter and Sammy the Tammy, the East End Park club’s friendly mascot.

We forget now whether the birthday cake was for the BBC reporter or for Sammy. Whatever, the track run of a top Scottish sportswoman in Europe didn’t rate a mention. The Diamond League, incidentally, is the athletics equivalent of the Champions League: group stages, not the early qualifying rounds.

If the anecdote is both amusing and infuriating in equal measure then it is highlighted simply as an example of how Scottish athletes or indeed the sport in Scotland often occupies only the margins of our mainstream media.

There are exceptions and, thankfully, the Commonwealth Games taking place in Scotland will hopefully be one of them. The action at Scotstoun should present a perfect stage for Team Scotland, with 39 picked for athletics and Para athletics.

Josh Kerr also broke through that low profile ceiling in some style with his World Record run at the London Diamond League in front of 60,000 fans. Arguably, the New York Times and Sports Illustrated were more engaged than some outlets at home.

Eyewitness accounts compare the noise level on Josh’s last lap as comparable to the Hampden roar for Scott McTominay’s overhead kick against Denmark. Only the Kerr crescendo lasted for his full solo run last lap.

Josh put his hands up for the Commonwealths as long ago as September last year. Arguably, he will be the biggest global name in action.

His desire to represent Team Scotland was strong and that has been replicated right across the athletics team. In fact, every single Scot who has represented GB in the past five or so years put themselves forward for Glasgow 2026 selection.

Laura Muir recognises that as absolutely fundamental for visibility.

‘The “see it to be it” aspect is really important, I feel,’ said Muir, set for her third Games. ‘We don’t get many chances to compete for Scotland at this kind of level. It is once every four years.

‘I try to be visible and I try to run in Britain or Scotland when I can. That’s really why I have done a few events in the cross country. I loved racing at Falkirk this year for the Lindsays National XC.

‘We want people — young athletes — at Scotstoun to see us. They know the clubs we all started out with.’

Jake Wightman, 1500m bronze medallist in 2018 and 2022, agreed. ‘We all want to show how good this period is for Scotland,’ he said.

‘I think in theory athletics should be the national sport because if you look at the percentages of medals at global champs from Scottish athletes, surely we as a sport are ridiculously high compared to any other sport? Sometimes I don’t think that is appreciated.

‘Come the Commonwealth Games, there is a chance to showcase that and show the average viewer, who doesn’t watch athletics generally, us competing in Scotland vests.

‘I feel it is a chance for us to give back for what Scotland does for us. We have been produced by the clubs and the (athletics in Scotland pathway) system here.

‘Glasgow 2026 gives us the chance to show how good a job they did around the opportunities we were given as kids to be able to get to the point we are at today.’

As it happens, Scots including Muir and Wightman have won medals at 11 of the last 12 major championships. The run stretches back four years.

If the purple patch is extended, there will surely be plaudits from BBC Scotland and beyond. Maybe even cake.

Peter Jardine is Head of Communications for Scottish Athletics.