Tokyo Olympics: Sarah Robertson delight at joining Caroline Weir in Team GB at different sport
- Published
Sarah Robertson is the only Scot in the Team GB hockey squads for Tokyo
Sarah Robertson was once a team-mate of Manchester City's Caroline Weir but finds herself realising her childhood Olympic "dream" in a different sport.
Both have been selected for Team GB - winger Weir at football and Robertson in a similar role but in hockey.
Robertson recalled "we played for Hibs together growing up" and was a potential future football Scotland cap.
"It is so funny that she has gone on to achieve such amazing things with football," the 27-year-old said.
"I was playing both for Scotland up until Under-16s and then at that point the commitment became too much.
"I was doing my highers at school, I had football and hockey at the weekends, I was leaving football matches to run to play hockey. It was just madness, so that decision-making point came."
Robertson, who plays for Hampstead & Westminster in England's Hockey League Premier Division, has not looked back and has made 104 appearances for Scotland and 54 for Great Britain.
"At that point, I was breaking into the Hibs Ladies team," she told BBC Scotland. "It was three or four years away from the Glasgow Commonwealth Games and that was dangled in front of me and I remember just thinking 'How can I ever turn that possibility down?'. I am certainly proud that I made the decision to pick hockey."
There were no Scots - male or female - in the Team GB squad for the Rio games five years ago and Robertson is "disappointed" that, although Alan Forsyth and Amy Costello are reserves, she is the only one included this time.
However, she is delighted to have realised an Olympic dream that was ignited by watching Kelly Holmes succeed on the athletics track.
"Last summer I was back in Scotland for lockdown and I was trailing through all my stuff from school and I found something from sports day in primary seven, so I would have been 10 or 11," she explained. "I think I had just watched Kelly Holmes win the double gold and I put that I wanted to run at the Olympics.
"I am not running, but I will be doing running in another form on the hockey pitch, so I have always been sport obsessed and it has always been my dream to go the Olympics."