It also selects teams for international competition, and coordinates courses for those aspiring to coach or officiate at meetings.

They received letters of support and affiliation from various athletic bodies throughout Scotland, and a few days later they appointed their first set of officials, published their first list of affiliated clubs, thirteen in number, and announced that their first championship would be held at the Powderhall Grounds, Edinburgh, on Saturday 23 June.

The rival Scottish AAA championship at Powderhall the following week was much more popular, and in every event except the high jump, the standard of performance was also a little higher.

[2][3] The Scottish Cross Country Union was formed in 1886 and they held their first national championship at Lanark in March of that year.

The Scottish Women’s Amateur Athletic Association was formed in 1930 and held their first national championships in 1931.

This became an annual fixture repeated every year until 1913, then in 1914 England were invited and it became a triangular match which continued until 1952.

Between 1967 and 1975 the four home nations, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, contested a British Isles Cup although this was not held every year.

The first junior international was held in 1978 against England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.The first Scottish athlete to win a medal in the Olympic Games was Arthur Robertson, a member of Birchfield Harriers who had been born in Sheffield, but his father John, a doctor, had been born in Dalziel, near Motherwell.

To determine who counted as a Scottish athlete, they defaulted to qualification for the championship, and this remained the case until 1932.

[8] Scottish Athletics has a small staff of volunteers who deal with approximately 14,000 members in approximately 170 clubs of varying size from those with several hundred members to specialist clubs and those for minority interests to accommodate all areas of athletics within Scotland.