AHEAD of her Commonwealth Games debut in the pool today, Tilly Gray has said she is “chilled and relaxed” thanks to the extensive facilities on offer to English athletes in Glasgow.

Gray, the former Commonweal School pupil, goes in the 100m butterfly heats this morning having received a late call-up for the event on Tuesday, before her sights turn to her favoured distance - the 200m fly - next week.

Despite experiencing the sights and sounds of a major Games for the first time, she claims to have settle in quickly at Team England’s base camp in the Scottish city, where every athlete’s every wont and need is catered for.

She told the Advertiser: “I’ve got all positive things to say. Each country has their own area - a block of flats - and England are the biggest team here, I believe. We call ours the Lions’ Den and you walk in and you’ve got hockey players playing volleyball, rugby players chilling on the bean bags, I bumped into one of my triathlete friends and it’s a really good place to meet new people.

“We’ve got so much support here. Anything you can think of we’ve got here - physios, doctors, an ice bath section, a lounge where we can chill - there’s been such a chilled feeling to the whole Games and I think we’re going to thrive off that.

“We perform best when we’re a bit more chilled out and relaxed, and for me, being a newbie, I think I’m just willing to take everything in my stride. We had our initiations on Saturday and that helped everyone integrate really well. We got to see each other’s silly sides and it’s all been really good.”

There are one or two downpoints, however, as Gray explained: “The food hall has got anything you can possibly think of to eat so obviously I’m avoiding all the desserts and everything nice and just sticking to my race plan.”

Reports of a norovirus outbreak in the Athletes’ Village prior to the Games gained national attention but Gray is confident the bug is no longer a major problem, saying: “We’ve been lucky. We’ve only just come here and a lot of it has probably been flushed out about 10 days ago. Hopefully that will remain the same but they’re doing simple things like hand-gels at every point. It’s all about looking after yourself.

“When you’re going round looking to pick what to eat for dinner you think ‘is it really best I have fish’ because you don’t know. The standards are very good but you have to take a bit of precaution at times.”