BARRHEAD’S sole Commonwealth Games representative David Smith will be looking to launch himself in to medal contention with the curtain set to be raised on Wednesday night (tonight) at Celtic Park.

The 23-year-old is currently enjoying his most successful season having jumped a career best 2.25m at the Loughborough High Jump Competition in May to claim gold.

This followed a silver medal performance at the British Athletics International Match at the Emirates Arena in January and gold at the British Universities and Colleges Sport Championships with jumps of 2.24m and 2.20m respectively.

The high jump competition kicks off on Monday, July 28 at Hampden Park, where a crowd of 44,000 is expected to witness the athletics events get underway — following on from this month’s Diamond League meet which formed part of the Commonwealth countdown.

It was the first time the Diamond League had traveled to Scotland and Smith put in a fantastic performance to finish as best Brit in the high jump competition with an overall fifth place display with a 2.22m jump.

This placed him ahead of Englishman Chris Baker and fellow Scot Allan Smith, who will also be competing at the Games.

If Smith is to make the final he will return to Hampden on Thursday, July 30 to battle it out for the medals. The action is scheduled to get underway at 6.40pm.

The field for the Commonwealth Games high jump is competitive as ever with the likes of Chris Baker and world top 10 jumper Donald Thomas of the Bahamas also set to compete at Hampden.

The Commonwealth record for the high jump currently stands at 2.36m, held by Bermudian Clarence Nicholas Saunders, when he jumped his way into the record books at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland whilst the world record is held by Javier Sotomayor of Cuba for a mammoth jump of 2.45m.