I won a potato and spoon race in year 2. The instructions they gave said if we dropped the potato we should run to where it was and put it back on the spoon so I flicked the potato to the finish line and ran and collected it and won by an absolute mile.

I won semi-pro doubles at a table football tournament in Lithuania once. Pretty crazy how serious people take table football (foosball) as a sport, really. Was mad fun though.

I was the captain of my high school basketball team for five minutes.

All the regular players (ie the actual sporty kids) had clashes with other things so the school team was made up of all the gets-picked-last rejects, including me. Given that university applications were being discussed with increasing vigour by our teachers we decided we’d take it in turns to be captain so we could all legitimately put it on our UCAS forms.

We got utterly humiliated by a team made of what I can only assume were ringers from the NBA (not a man of them was under 8 feet tall or thereabouts). Didn’t matter to us, though, we were living the dream of being athletes.

Once scored an overhead kick during our in-school football tournament. Even got a pat on the back from one of the bigger kids.

I peaked at 9 years old.

Best was coming second in a non-competitive 26 mile walk. Worst was the swimming certificate for a width of the local municipal pool whilst clinging to a lump of polystyrene foam. With hindsight the award was probably for not drowning.

End of year 3 at secondary school we got to go and do fun things for 3 days such as visit big cities tourist attractions/surf the Internet (in old, fight me!) or my personal favourite: go karting 😎

Highly competitive group that had a minor panic when someone crashed and broke the kart in half but the day progressed anyway. I struggled with the pace of some others, got spun out but somehow still qualified for the final.

Close racing all the way before a crash left just 2 of us in contention for the win. I get a bad exit out of the second to last corner, overtaken but there’s a big hairpin coming up. Fake one way, dice the other and on the brakes daringly late but enough to get up the inside and get the lead before the short sprint to the flag. Exhilarating!

Still got the little plastic trophy I won. 26 years on.

(The rest of the kids were assholes afterwards, go figure)

I came second in long jump on sports day in year 8. I still think about it sometimes.

Of course, only 2 people competed…

I won some medals for ballroom dance when I was maybe 8 or 9. Not a sporting achievement I guess but it required a certain level of athleticism and co-ordination that I’m severly lacking in my 30s.

My greatest sporting achievement is being so steadfast in my refusal to play rounders, they eventually excused me from junior school P.E. altogether and I got to go hang out in the library instead.

Before that I’d just sort of stand there, let the ball go whirling past me and stare deadpan at anyone who tried to make me feel bad about it.

In hindsight I was a slightly terrifying child.

Playing 4th line defense on my high school hockey team, I managed to fall asleep on the bench and no one seemed to notice.

I came third in a school cross country run. My friend pissed me off so much I ran so I wouldn’t have to talk.

I was in Year 10 PE, playing rounders, my absolute worst. Hate that game. The teacher was the pitcher. I was at-bat. The teacher said to the catcher, “As soon as she misses, throw the ball straight to me.” She pitched, I whacked that ball and made it to first or second post. That’s my greatest sporting achievement and I still feel good about it now.

BAGA 3 in gymnastics. I have absolutely no memory of this, but I have a certificate so it must have happened.

I won the players player of the year trophy for my under 15s football team in the mid 90’s. We were rubbish and only won 2 games that season but it was nice having all my mates vote for me.

I won gold medals for javelin shotput and discus in the Ayrshire championships as a wean. Although my greatest achieement was winning actual cash money at the Arran Highland Games 4k race for coming in 4th. There may only have been 4 people competing, but prize money is prize money, and I was just glad to finish considering I was more hungover than I’d ever been.