Lee Morton has barely unpacked his bags from the Olympic Games and yet he’s off again.
Less than two weeks after the Closing Ceremony at Paris 2024, Scotland’s top male hockey player is back in competitive action and while the rapid turnaround would be daunting for some, it’s just what Morton believes he needs.
Becoming an Olympian was the culmination of a life-long dream for the Glaswegian.
And, just a few years ago, having been on the brink of giving up the sport and accepting that his Olympic ambitions were unlikely to ever be fulfilled, merely being selected for Paris 2024 was a major achievement for the 29-year-old.
But, given the form of the GB men’s side in the lead-up to the Paris Games, Morton and his teammates went into the Olympics with lofty ambitions of becoming the first GB men’s hockey side to win an Olympic medal in over three decades.
Their belief in their ability to make it onto the podium was why their quarter-final defeat to India was so heartbreaking, particularly in the manner it happened in a penalty shoot-out.
His side’s premature exit meant Morton departed Paris and returned to Scotland with ambivalent feelings about his Olympic experience.
“I achieved the dream I had when I was younger of becoming an Olympian - I thought the chance of me getting to the Olympics was gone so to actually be in Paris was unreal,” he says.
“But based on how the past few years have gone for GB, it was a huge disappointment to not medal. And to go out the way we did was tough. So, for me, there’s still a lot of anger and hurt about the way we went out of the tournament in Paris.”
The best way for Morton to get over his disappointment is, he believes, to get straight back on the horse, so to speak.
And that’s why he was delighted to be called up for Scotland duty almost immediately.
Today, Scotland’s men begin their EuroHockey Championship Qualifier campaign in Vienna, with the squad knowing that anything less than overall victory will be classed as a failure.
Only the winning team over the next four days will progress to next year’s EuroHockey Championship but with the Scots the highest-ranked side in the tournament at 21 in the world – they face 41st ranked Croatia today with the winner playing either Ukraine or Lithuania in the final – Morton is confident the Scots will emerge victorious by the end of the weekend.
And, with the midfielder having been one of GB’s best and most consistent players at the Olympic Games – the Scottish midfielder scored three goals in Paris – he’s looking to put both his form and his experience to good use in the coming days.
“I’m really happy to be going away with Scotland because it’s made me look forward rather than looking back at Paris,” he says.
“Over the next few days, I want to be one of the guys who’s driving the team forwards and being the most experienced guy in the team, especially such a young team, I feel it’s my role to pass as much of my experience on as I can to them.
“The target is to get back up to the A Division would be massive for us and I think we’ve got a really good chance of doing that. Anything other than winning it will be a failure for us.”
Morton may still not have quite caught his breath following his Olympic experience – and his Scotland call-up has ensure any downtime has been forced to wait that bit longer – but even on his return from Vienna, Morton will have little time to relax.
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In the coming weeks, Morton will relocate to the Netherlands having signed for the Dutch top-division side Amsterdamse Hockey.
With the Dutch league the top men’s hockey league in the world, and Morton having long harboured a dream to play in the Netherlands, it’ll mark yet another milestone in the Glaswegian’s career and how he fares may well have a considerable bearing on whether he makes a push for a second Olympic appearance in four years time in LA.
“When I was younger, I set myself three goals – playing in the Commonwealth Games, becoming an Olympian and playing in Holland. I’ve done the first two so to be on the verge of ticking-off the third is so exciting,” he says.
“I’ve done six seasons in England and now this Olympic cycle is over, it’s so exciting to have a new challenge and it’s pretty crazy to be able to say I’ll have achieved all my targets. That’s hard to believe.
“There’s a lot of factors that will play into any decisions about my future and now’s not the time to make any rash decisions. I’ll see how I get on in Amsterdam and assess things in a couple of years and see if I want to go for LA 2028.”
