Four years ago, Robyn Love cried in a converted car park in Birmingham. The music was too loud, the atmosphere was chaotic, and Scotland's women's wheelchair 3x3 basketball team had just lost a bronze medal to the hosts on home turf. It was a painful moment that stuck with her.
This week, everything was different. Love stood inside the SEC arena in Glasgow, surrounded by cheering fans, and walked away with a silver medal around her neck after Scotland's women's team fell to England 18-10 in the gold medal match. This time, the tears she shed were tears of joy.
"I'm not crying now, but I pretty much was this morning after the semi-final," said Love, who is 35 and from Ayr. "To get a Commonwealth silver with this group, and to get to coach them and see them grow... what a privilege. I feel incredibly lucky and it's much better being in the SEC than in a car park in Birmingham, I can tell you that for free."
Love was the only player left from that 2022 Birmingham team that finished fourth. This time, she played alongside Lea Smith, Kayli English, and Jodie Waite. The squad had beaten Australia in the semi-final earlier in the day to guarantee themselves at least silver.
Scotland's men's wheelchair 3x3 team also brought home hardware, winning bronze in a nail-biting 18-16 victory over New Zealand. The match was tight and tense, but Skylar White, Owen McCormack, Kyle Jimenez, and Ross Malcolm held their nerve when it mattered most.
For Jimenez and Malcolm, this medal was especially sweet. They had lost bronze medal matches in both 2018 and 2022 — twice watching the podium slip away. This time, they refused to let it happen a third time.
"We needed to keep it interesting for you guys," White, whose father is from Kilmarnock, told fans after the win. He added: "Towards the end, I told the guys 'you can be hurt tomorrow, you can feel sore tomorrow, but right now it's time to nut up and get it done'."
McCormack, who qualifies to play for Scotland through his Scottish mother, said the feeling ranked among the "top two... and it's not two" moments of his life. Both Malcolm and Jimenez spoke about hoping the sport would finally get the attention it deserves.
"Coming into this we all believed we could get a medal as a team, but no one else thought anything of us — we proved the world wrong today," Jimenez said. Malcolm added: "Every time we play on an international stage we punch above our weight."
The men's wheelchair team had earlier lost their own bronze medal match to Canada 19-9, but the bronze won by Jimenez, Malcolm, White, and McCormack gave Scotland's 3x3 program something to celebrate. Together, the two teams returned home with a silver and a bronze — proof that patience, persistence, and belief can turn past disappointments into hard-won triumphs.