Australia next stop in Lauren's Games bid GYMNASTICS: A 14-year-old pupil at Deans Community High School, Lauren Brash has her sights firmly set on making the Scottish team for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow next year. This week, the rhythmic gymnast takes another huge step towards her dream when she heads to Sydney on Saturday for the Australian Youth Olympic Festival. Since Christmas, the West Lothian youngster has been working with coach Marion Sands and has had fellow Team GB member, Helena Stiles, as a training mate. "I'm the only Scot in the team and it's been great to have Helena staying with me since Boxing Day," said the teenager whose biggest event to date was last year's European Junior Championships in Russia. A winner of two medals at the British Open Championships in Bradford and more at an international event in Sweden at the end of the year, Lauren is in her final year as a junior. This year, I want to earn more caps at GB and Scottish level, but the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow is the big thing. Hopefully, Scotland will have a team as well as individual selections. Lauren was a relative latecomer to rhythmic gymnasts. "My brother, James, was a trampolinist and he was good but I wanted to be better so I took it up," she explained. But he stopped and I then switched to rhythmic gymnastics when I was about nine. The school is really supportive. The trip to Australia is the longest time I've needed off - two weeks - and the teachers have set me some work and I'll be taking it with me. Balls, clubs, ribbons and hoops are the four disciplines in her sport, with the clubs her present favourites, and she is hoping that Team GB can come home with a medal. With her usual coach, Liz McNeill, on holiday over Christmas and New Year, Lauren was grateful that Sands could step in. And the experienced coach has been impressed. Lauren has sacrificed a lot over Christmas, training and resting in readiness for Australia. She is a very capable young gymnast and has a great future.