World-class badminton sensation Kirsty Gilmour hasn’t looked back since making her debut for Scotland when she was just 16 years old. A few months later she represented Scotland again at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi and she was jointly named Scottish Young Sports Personality of the year alongside swimmer Craig Benson in 2012. In 2014 she won a silver medal at her home Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, becoming the first Scottish player to reach the finals of the singles in the history of the games. Two years later she soared to her highest ranking position in her career so far (number 14) following her Olympic debut for Great Britain in Rio, before picking up her second Commonwealth medal in 2018 in the Gold coast. At the end of 2022 she was Scotland’s highest-ranking active badminton player. Having won several European and Commonwealth medals so far in her glittering career, her aim is to medal at the two other major events – the World Championships and the Olympics.

The double Olympian grew up in a family of badminton players and her uncle David Gilmour was a Scottish Internationalist who competed at two Commonwealth Games. Rarely with a badminton racquet out of her hands since she was four years old, she attended Glasgow’s school of sports where she combined playing and training with her education. Gilmour has set an example for other players struggling with their own identities since publicly coming out, and feels she is playing more freely now she is competing as her true self.