Reuben Ward targets Glasgow 2026 after watching Keatings win gold

Reuben Ward was named among nine gymnasts selected for Team Scotland at Glasgow 2026, with the artistic gymnastics competition set for 24 to 28 July and Ward listed as Scotland’s 2026 all-around champion. The selection brings Ward back to the city where, as a child, he watched Dan Keatings win gymnastics gold for Scotland and saw how a home Games could shape a future athlete.

Team Scotland’s squad feature showed Ward getting his first look at the competition equipment during a full dress rehearsal on Wednesday evening, a final rehearsal that brought the scale of the event into focus. Ward and British Universities All-Around champion Connor Sullivan completed the men’s team, showing the route from domestic and university competition to the Commonwealth stage.

Glasgow 2026 is being staged from 23 July to 2 August across four venues within the city boundaries, with around 3,000 athletes competing for 215 gold medals over 10 days. Glasgow becomes only the third city ever to host the Commonwealth Games twice, after Auckland and Edinburgh, and Team Scotland says the city will build on the infrastructure and expertise from its previous time as host. That legacy gives the Games a practical edge as well as a symbolic one, with the same city once again providing the stage for Scotland’s leading athletes.

The broader Scottish record around the Commonwealth Games adds weight to Ward’s selection. Team Scotland says Scotland has won medals at every Games to date, and that Glasgow 2014 delivered a record-breaking performance for the nation. From Hamilton in 1930 to Gold Coast 2018, Scottish athletes have kept the medal run intact, and Ward now joins that lineage as the 2026 all-around champion heading into a home Games.

Keatings, whom Team Scotland describes as a former Scottish gymnast and Commonwealth Games medallist, later told BBC Sport about a “climate of fear” in British Gymnastics, a reminder that the sport’s recent history still hangs over its success stories. For Ward, though, the connection is simpler and more personal: the gold he watched in Glasgow helped turn a childhood seat in the stands into a place on Scotland’s own team.