The Scotland-England sister rivalry at Glasgow 2026

The Scotland-England sister rivalry at Glasgow 2026Figure caption, Sisters Astrid and Ursula Carroll are making their Commonwealth Games debut in Glasgow. ByRuth GregoryBBC Sport and Sally HurstBBC Look North Senior JournalistTeenage sisters Astrid and Ursula Carroll will both compete at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow - but for different countries.Astrid, 17, was born in Edinburgh and swims for Scotland, but 14-year-old Ursula was born in Halifax and represents England.The visually impaired siblings will line up against each other in the women's 100m freestyle S13 heats on Friday morning."It'll be nice walking out and just seeing you," laughs Astrid. Ursula smiles before responding: "Scottish, unbelievable."Sat around the kitchen table at their family cottage in Holmfirth, Yorkshire, they joke between themselves - but the atmosphere won't necessarily be this friendly once the competition starts."I've swam with you almost most of my life anyway, but it will be nice to be competing against you," adds Ursula, who is the youngest member of England's team at the Games.Image source, Carroll FamilyImage caption, Astrid and Ursula have been swimming together since early childhood.The teenagers train together at Stockport Metro Swimming Club, but it will be the first time they have raced each other in competition, presenting some unusual problems for their family."I think our grandparents were talking about wearing a T-shirt with the Scottish flag on the front and the English flag on the back or something," says Astrid. Ursula smirks as she replies: "Why is the English on the back?"Astrid normally competes in the S12 category, which is lower on the scale for visually impaired swimmers, while Ursula is in the S13 category. But under Commonwealth rules all visually impaired athletes swim together in one category, setting up a debut competitive meet between them.They will compete in freestyle races, rather than the breaststroke or backstroke events that Astrid won medals in at last year's Para-swimming World Championships in Singapore."Sadly, Ursula is better at front crawl, so I might have to settle," admits Astrid. Ursula laughs as she responds: "This is news to me!" Adapting to swimming The sisters have Stargardt disease - a rare, inherited eye condition that results in a progressive loss of central vision, where a build-up of unprocessed vitamin A at the back of the eye in the retina causes it to tear over time. "It's basically like seeing through a doughnut or like bubble wrap," explains Astrid. "Over Covid it got a lot worse, so that was quite difficult going back to the pool and adjusting after that." Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Astrid won individual silver and bronze medals at the 2025 Para-swimming World Championships in Singapore.Working alongside her coaches, Astrid has adapted by incorporating specialised techniques to enhance her swimming performance. "I do a lot of straight counting," she says. "So I will count the amount of strokes and then know that amount and then turn. "I'm also introducing tappers at the moment, it's basically like you'll have a person on the side that will hit you on the head when you are a certain amount of strokes out and that's how you know when to turn."It's just adapting the coaching techniques to being less visual and more getting very good at verbally describing what you want from the technique."The supportive family bondUrsula, who was also diagnosed with the degenerative eye condition at eight years old, says her elder sister has been a huge inspiration."I think you're quite a motivated person," she tells Astrid.'It's really, really helpful just being around you generally because it just makes me push myself as much as you push yourself."Especially since you've been in the sport for quite a long time, I can almost use you as a resource to help me through the sport and help me understand everything about it."Astrid brushes off Ursula's compliments. "We'll see about that later," she replies."No, it's quite nice when everything else feels quite daunting or new or special. Just being like, this is someone that's reliable, it's just really nice." Image source, Carroll FamilyImage caption, The girls could also face each other in the 50m freestyle S13 racesThe teenagers will make their international debuts for Scotland and England in Glasgow. "It's an amazing opportunity," admits Astrid."I think both of us are really looking forward to getting in and racing and being able to turn that non-competitive sibling thing into 'let's get into the pool and race a good race!'."With another smile, Ursula adds: "It's going to be really interesting going against you. We'll just have to see about it [the result]."The sisters break into laughter as Astrid says: "You're a competitive enough person, I'm sure we can make it a nice competition."You should just have joined Scotland!"More on this story