Why life hasn't been all guns and roses for GB shooter

Seonaid McIntosh "never really wanted to do shooting". That was sister Jen's domain.

Five years older, she already had already won Commonwealth Games medals earlier Seonaid had moreover decently picked up a rifle.

Instead, nan younger of nan 2 sisters was much prone to picking up a hefty tube set drum.

But related rivalry is simply a powerful thing.

Fast guardant a fewer years, and Seonaid is not only astir to spell to her 2nd Olympics but spell pinch a golden badge successful her sights.

World champion astatine 22, unwellness and a situation of assurance undermined her Tokyo Games experience, but she goes into nan Paris version classed first successful nan world successful nan women's 50m firearm 3 positions.

To opportunity she is successful good shape would beryllium an understatement - only erstwhile this play has she grounded to triumph an arena she has entered.

Add successful entries for nan 10m aerial firearm and 10m mixed squad rifle, and location is each chance McIntosh will return from this Olympics pinch thing astir her neck.

Her travel to scope this constituent has been a circuitous one.

Natural - possibly hereditary - talent has blended pinch difficult graft to flooded repeated wellness challenges and found McIntosh arsenic 1 of nan world's best.

Before her sister's successes, dada Donald and mum Shirley were Commonwealth Games shooters themselves. Not that it looked for illustration Seonaid would travel their paths.

"We were ne'er pushed towards shooting, successful truth Seonaid ne'er wanted to do it for a agelong time," Jen tells BBC Sport.

"We are rather similar, rather competitive, truthful that made things for illustration committee games absorbing astatine times.

"She says it for illustration it is and yet she was very overmuch an aged soul, ever had a spot of a plan, was rather awkward astatine times, a spot awkward now and again, but very mature."

That scheme looked for illustration being a philharmonic one. Like her sister, Seonaid went to Dollar Academy and became portion of nan schoolhouse tube band, tally by Craig Stewart.

And it conscionable truthful happened that Stewart was besides nan school's shooting squad coach.

"Seonaid is not a large lass but she would transportation this tenor drum that is 20 inches successful circumference and effort to march successful clip pinch strapping young lads astatine 6ft 2in pinch strides for illustration giraffes," he recalls.

"She was is successful nan mediate of nan set trying to support up, but she ne'er complained. She is awesome musician - she plays nan drum kit arsenic good - and was a world champion successful piping and drumming pinch us."

Such was her talent that, astatine 1 stage, location was moreover talk of McIntosh going to prestigious euphony schools successful nan United States, explained dada Donald.

"Music was her point and that was nan way she followed for rather a agelong time," he told BBC Sport.

It soon became clear, though, that McIntosh had nan imaginable to proceed nan family contented connected nan shooting range.

One day, Donald recalls she decided to subordinate nan family astatine nan Alloa and District nine having "done a wee spot of prone firearm shooting astatine school".

Within a fewer hours, he was excitedly showing friend and five-time Commonwealth Games shooter Robin Law nan insubstantial targets Seonaid had aimed at.

"It was evident location was thing location beautiful quickly," he says.

Former Scotland coach Sinclair Bruce concurs, recalling an early gathering pinch Seonaid astatine Meadowbank shooting range.

"Shooting is littered pinch young group for whom it comes very easy, but they don’t past because they haven’t sewage nan activity ethic," said Bruce. "Seonaid was ne'er for illustration that."

Add successful what Stewart affectionately calls her "thrawn" quality and her expertise to perceive and learn, and nan family had different elite jock astir nan meal table.

For a while, McIntosh juggled her studies, euphony and shooting but it was watching Jen compete astatine London 2012 that convinced her to prioritise nan latter.

"She saw Olympic shooting successful each its glory and thought, ‘I fancy a spell astatine that'," Donald explains. "Pretty quickly aft that she said, ‘Dad, tin I effort shooting 3P?’

"That needed each sorts of kit we didn't person but I said she could commencement pinch aerial rifle, because my aged 1 was still successful nan house. And she conscionable took disconnected pinch it instantly."

Jen, engaged chasing her ain dreams of Olympic success, was oblivious to nan effect she had had. And oblivious to nan truth her wee sister soon "pretty overmuch exceeded everything I ever achieved".

Medals of each different colours astatine world, European and Commonwealth level person each followed, but those trinkets are only portion of Seonaid's singular story.

Throughout her ascent to nan apical of her sport, nan 28-year-old has dealt pinch arthritis and Crohn’s illness and admitted past twelvemonth successful an question and reply pinch BBC Sport to struggling pinch her intelligence wellness during nan Covid lockdowns.

"She has ne'er fixed successful to immoderate of it," Donald says. "She sewage arthritis successful her knees and spent a batch of her past twelvemonth astatine schoolhouse connected crutches arsenic nan doctors tried to activity retired what was going on.

"There was talk of juvenile arthritis, which would clear up, but it didn’t activity retired for illustration that truthful she spent nan adjacent 2 aliases 3 years trying to sprout world while having a really unsmooth clip pinch it because she kept having flare ups.

"She's besides sewage what is astir apt Crohn’s disease, which comes and goes and hospitalised her successful Egypt astatine nan World Championships successful 2022, and immoderate different bits and pieces truthful she is successful symptom a batch of nan time.

"That is beautiful overmuch her regular life and these things thin to conscionable travel and spell for nary evident reason.

"It's difficult to stay affirmative sometimes erstwhile these things are beating you up, but she has learned to grit her teeth and move forward.”

Nobody has much admiration than Jen.

She knows really difficult competing astatine nan apical level of nan athletics is, moreover without nan wellness problems that person beset her wee sister.

"It was really difficult for a agelong clip because location was a batch of uncertainty earlier she sewage nan diagnosis," said Jen. "But arsenic soon arsenic she did get it, she was like, ‘well, this is what I person sewage and I americium going to woody pinch it’.

"In galore ways, she continues almost successful spite of it, because she doesn’t want to fto it clasp her backmost and that is rather unthinkable to watch."