Staying united

I expect you saw or heard parts of the referendum debate and maybe considered for a moment what the impacts would be on us, even if we are located hundreds of miles away from the issue. It could have been easy to disregard this looming decision and ignore the economical and political impacts that potentially would have affected us as well as Scotland.  It turned out that the Scots themselves struggled to decide which way to go as there was a strong argument for either side proven by the close results from many of the councils.
Sport was one aspect that would certainly have seen a significant affect. It opened up some interesting debates but whichever way I looked at it I couldn’t see the benefit for Scotland going it alone. Some of the team sports already play regularly for their separate nations, with rugby, football, hockey and netball being prime examples so the change might not have been so dramatic for them.
From my perspective it would be the Olympic sports such as athletics, swimming, and cycling that would see the biggest challenges. At the recent Commonwealth Games Scotland proved they could enter a competitive team however if you look at where the majority of those athletes train or receive their funding from it becomes a little more complicated. An athlete’s main goal in their career is to perform at their very optimum once every four years at the Olympic Games; in order to do this most choose to train at the top class venues based in England. If given the choice to represent Scotland or Great Britain in Rio 2016 I know what most of the athletes would choose. Luckily this debate is now closed and we can concentrate on winning more medals in two years time.