When Sean McCann stood behind the blocks of the 50-metre swimming pool at Loughborough University for the very first time, he was an 18-year-old with a dream. He dreamed to compete for Scotland and Team GB on the senior international stage. And on Saturday, at the age of 21, after years of surviving ‘disgusting’ training sessions, McCann is on the cusp of realising his life goal. Almost two decades on from the tragic disappearance of his older sister Madeleine, who was abducted from the family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, the Scot will take to the pool to compete in the 400m freestyle heats at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.Sean was in the room when Madeleine’s abduction unfolded. The 21-year-old, who was two years old at the time of his family’s unimaginable tragedy and does not remember the huge global fallout from the case, has received unconditional support from his parents, Gerry and Kate, on his swimming journey.They have remained a pillar for Sean during his sporting ventures, with Kate having originally introduced him to swimming which he admitted to ‘hating at first’, with the youngster not wanting to go to lessons.The couple regularly attend swimming meets to cheer on their son, who has a twin sister named Amelie, and are said to be ‘enthusiastic’ about distance swimming. Madeline McCann’s younger brother Sean will swim for Scotland at the Commonwealth Games Sean has had an incredible rise through the swimming ranks in Scotland and Great BritainOne source, who wishes to remain anonymous, expressed to Daily Mail Sport that the parents are ‘really, really supportive’ and ‘are always there turning up’, despite the potential they could be put in the spotlight after everything they have been through.Saturday marks a monumental moment in the young man’s career, and takes him one step closer to his ultimate goal of competing at the Los Angeles Olympics in two years’ time. His journey to the Commonwealth Games began at the age of eight, when he finally got over his fear of the pool. McCann joined Charnwood Triathlon Club, with the hope of becoming the next Alistair Brownlee rather than Michael Phelps.It was there he discovered his talent for swimming. Soon enough, he wanted to train in the pool more and more, so he joined Loughborough Town Swimming Club to quench that desire, before eventually being handpicked to move to City of Leicester.At youth level, McCann was clearly talented. He came seventh in the 17-year-old age group 400m freestyle at the British Summer Championships in 2022, while he represented Scotland at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Trinidad and Tobago just a year later.But it wasn’t until he got to the university that has been on his doorstep his whole life that everything changed.Loughborough University has one of the most prestigious swimming programs not just in the UK but in the world. It has developed stars such as Adam Peaty, who is arguably the greatest swimmer this country has ever seen, Daniel Wiffen, 800m freestyle reigning Olympic champion, and Liam Tancock, former 50m backstroke world record holder. The program has no shortage of heritage.And McCann took to it like a duck to water. After initially being plopped in the Performance Development squad, McCann sliced a huge chunk off his 400m freestyle time, taking it from 4:01.67 to 3:56.22 in just one year of training at Loughborough.This seismic improvement saw him promoted to the High Performance squad with Andi Manley, who coaches Wiffen.Those who have trained with McCann at Loughborough, and elsewhere, made it clear that this remarkable progress is down to his mentality and drive to succeed.Team Scotland international swimmer, Charlie Hutchison, tells Daily Mail Sport: ‘He’s a workhorse, just like everybody else in that squad. We do some disgusting training sessions, but he is never one to complain or moan. He just gets on with it.‘This is definitely something he has worked on when he didn’t have as many people to race against and then moving to such a competitive group. Just not being demoralised and pushing forward.‘It’s great to have him on the team as part of Team Scotland.’ Sean was inspired to start swimming by his mother Kate, although he admits to hating the sport at first Sean’s older sister Madeline went missing in 2007 when Sean was just two years oldInsiders have explained to Daily Mail Sport how McCann used to have to wake up at 5.15am most mornings to make training, with the perceived ‘higher’ squads swimming at more favourable times.But McCann was never one to moan during those times, and put in the ‘hard yards’ to progress into the next squad and make his dreams come true. Hutchison continues: ‘He’s on the path to do very well. His rise through the Scottish ranks was on the Scottish junior team. He’s gone from strength to strength, dropping almost 12 seconds from when he first joined.’McCann has now taken his 400m freestyle time down to an impressive 3:50.66, with the seconds just dropping with each passing year. But he is not just a one-trick pony; he has proven to be quite versatile in the art of distance swimming.The Scot will also be competing in both the 800m and 1500m freestyle at the Commonwealth Games, which is almost like making yourself do a half-marathon, deciding that’s not enough, and then doing a marathon straight after. And if that still wasn’t enough, he also has a history with open water racing, the marathon equivalent. This is how Olympian Hector Pardoe, who came sixth in the 10km swimming event at the Paris Olympics, met McCann.The pair met when McCann was representing the Scotland open water development team at the Mallorca Best Fest event, and Pardoe was asked to drop him a message. They spoke about suit sizes, and the double-Olympian also gave him advice on the physicality of the sport.In the years since, they became team-mates at Loughborough and even room-mates at the European Open Water Championships in Croatia last year. Pardoe tells Daily Mail Sport: ‘He’s a really, really nice guy. He’s a very good trainer, trains really hard, is polite, and a good swimmer. ‘I’ve known him for three or four years now; he joined Loughborough in 2023. He’s got a lot quicker. I’d previously seen him on the results page at Nationals, as well. ‘When I would be chatting to the Director of Aquatics GB Open Water about new swimmers coming through, he would mention a guy called Sean.’The distance swimmer originally hails from Leicester and qualifies to represent Scotland through his father, Gerry. Sean will be swimming the 400m, 800m, and 1500m freestyle at the home Games in GlasgowWhile McCann is set to complete one dream and don the famous blue hat, which has been worn by many a megastar swimmer before him, for the very first time at a senior level, he is hungry for more.After this summer has come to an end, McCann has his sights set on representing Great Britain at the next Olympics in LA. If the Scot wants that dream to become reality, he will have to take off over five seconds from his current 400m freestyle personal best. The Olympic ‘A Entry Standard’ qualifying time is 3:45.46, while the ‘B Entry Standard’, which only grants qualification at your country’s governing body’s discretion, is 3:47.71. Nevertheless, with McCann no stranger to shaving huge chunks off his best times, there is genuine belief that he has what it takes to reach the pinnacle of the sport.‘His path to making the Olympics certainly isn’t going to be an easy one,’ Hutchison adds. ‘He is in an event that was strong, went very weak, and now is very strong again. Now he is having to contend with the likes of Jack McMillan, James Guy, and Tyler Melbourne-Smith.‘But if he carries on his current trajectory, and he continues in one of the best programs in the world for distance swimming, I have no doubt that he can definitely achieve that.’McCann will be able to use Saturday’s event as a barometer to see how far he is off the very best in Britain. Then it’s all steam ahead to LA.