Wallace shamed by drink driving conviction
BySportsbeat
Published 25/09/2017 at 17:23 GMT
Olympic silver medallist Dan Wallace admits he has had to learn to live with the shame he felt at the drink-driving conviction which left him suspended from swimming for three months.
Eurosport
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The 24-year-old’s ban has now ended, but being out of competition for so long could threaten his chances of Commonwealth Games selection, with the Scottish swim team being announced on October 3.
Wallace already has one Commonwealth gold and two silvers to his name and would have hoped to add to these on the Gold Coast next spring.
The 2015 world champion was two-and-a-half times over the limit when he was arrested in June and Wallace feels he has let people down.
"There was a lot of regret as I realised what I'd done," he said.
"Throughout the next few hours it got a lot more serious, and I started thinking about all the other people it was going to affect.
"[There] was a real sense of embarrassment, there were a lot of people who heard about it that I wish hadn't.
"My little sister is 12 years old and she had to hear about it, and I've got thousands of fans who are all young swimmers - it's a real shame that they had to see my name in the headlines for the wrong reasons.
"That was the hardest thing for me, I obviously let down a lot of people."
It has not the first time Wallace has been in trouble with the law – the swimmer was arrested in Florida for urinating on a police car.
The latest arrest cost Wallace his elite podium funding, but feels he would have struggled to get his life back together were it not for his sport.
"Team Scotland and Scottish Swimming have given me a lot of great help through this whole thing to make sure my performance and lifestyle are up to par - where I and where they want it to be," he added.
"There were certain areas last year where my lifestyle didn't meet being a professional athlete, so there is no more room for error and the next season will be one to test that.
"I'm very anxious, it will be my second Commonwealth Games if selected and for me that's just as exciting as the first one.
"It's taken me to sink to a real low to realise what it is I want through swimming and through my life.
"It definitely spurs me on every day - it's now part of my story and I just need to deal with that, use it to my advantage, and make a bit of a comeback."
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