Dumbarton Olympian Rebecca McGowan says local support has helped her with Paris heartbreak

Dumbarton Olympian Rebecca McGowan says local support has helped her through her Paris heartbreak.

The former OLSP pupil said she “had her heart broken twice” after losing out on taekwondo heavyweight bronze to Turkey’s Nafia Kus Aydin.

It came after she bounced back from a quarter-final loss to Svetlana Osipova of Uzbekistan to earn a medal shot on the mats through the repechage.

McGowan had top seed Kus Aydin worried by taking the first round 9-4 but lost the second 4-2.

Her dream was dashed when the Turk came out 6-2 ahead in the third with a controversial video replay tilting the balance.

Rebecca told the Lennox: “I’ve had a bit of time to process everything and feel a bit better about things.

“I went into my old primary school, St Michael’s, and one of the taekwondo classes in Dumbarton has had 20 new sign- ups, so now that I’ve processed what I’ve actually done I do feel a lot better.

“I don’t think you realise the impact that you make as an Olympian. I’m training every day and it just becomes the norm. But going into my primary school and seeing how proud and excited they were was really special.

“They had all made little cards for me saying how well I’d done and were telling me that I’d win gold in LA.

“That was lovely and meant a lot.”

Rebecca admits that stepping into the Grand Palais took her breath away, but hearing familiar voices from the stands instantly made her at home on the biggest stage in world sport.

She continued: “The morning of the competition was a bit of a reality check. I think that’s when it hit me that, oh my gosh, this is happening today.

“There weren’t many nerves. But there was a lot of excitement. I don’t think I realised how big the arena was until I walked out on it.

“I’d been watching