Madeleine McCann's younger brother, Sean McCann, has been selected to represent Scotland at the Commonwealth Games. The 21-year-old will take a major step in his bid to reach the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles when he swims for Scotland in the Games that get underway on Thursday.
Sean McCann's swimming career
Sean will compete in the freestyle disciplines, according to Swim Scotland, who have named a 25-strong team for the Games. He began competing aged eight and previously raced for Scotland at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Trinidad and Tobago in 2023 in the 400m and 1500m freestyle.
“I started competitive sport when I was eight, joining Charnwood triathlon club,” he revealed on the Joe Humphries Memorial Trust website. “It was here that I discovered my passion for swimming and I joined Loughborough Town swimming club to increase the number of swim sessions I did per week. At the age of 10, I was selected to swim at City of Leicester and I have since gone on to win multiple county titles as well as becoming regional and National champion in my age group. In order to have achieved this, I have had to remain extremely dedicated, getting up at 4am multiple mornings each week to train, since the age of 11. I train nine times a week in the pool, as well as three gym sessions, totalling over 20 hours of training per week. I’m aiming to compete at the 2026 Commonwealth Games and also the 2028 Olympics in LA.”
Family background
Madeleine was three when she went missing from her family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in southern Portugal on May 3, 2007, shortly before her birthday. Sean and his twin sister Amelie were just two when their older sister disappeared.
While it is not known if parents Kate and Gerry McCann will be in attendance at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre during the 11-day event, they did criticise a true-crime drama about their daughter’s disappearance back in May, saying the programme was made without their consultation or consent. Kate and Gerry said they 'had no involvement whatsoever' in the making of Channel 5’s 'Under Suspicion: Kate McCann', which depicts Madeleine’s mother being treated as a suspect during the investigation into her disappearance in May 2007.
In a statement released on the day the show aired, Kate and Gerry raised concerns over the 'negative impact' such programmes have on their family as they continue to grieve Madeleine’s disappearance 19 years on. “Thank you to everyone who has offered support & kindness this month,” they wrote on the Find Madeleine Campaign website. “May is never the easiest. We usually start to feel a bit ‘lighter’ at this stage of the month. We are disappointed however, knowing that a Channel 5 ‘docu-drama’ will air tonight. We have not given, or been asked for, our consent and have had no involvement whatsoever in its making. We fail to see how it will help. Programmes like this, always have a negative impact on our family.”
Investigation into Madeleine's disappearance
The Metropolitan Police’s probe into the 2007 disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine has been active since 2011. German authorities identified Christian Brueckner as the prime suspect in Madeleine’s case back in 2022. However, Brueckner has never been charged over Madeleine’s disappearance and has previously denied any involvement.
Speaking in December, dad Gerry, from Glasgow, said the hope of finding her after all this time is 'slim', but not 'extinguished'. “Madeleine’s been missing for 18 years, and the bottom line is, we still don’t know what’s happened to her,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Gerry added: “I don’t even mean ‘convincing’ evidence – there is no evidence to say she’s dead. Now we fully understand she may be dead, it may even be probable, but we don’t know that. I’d love to find her alive, but we need to find out what happened and bring whoever’s responsible to justice, and other children and people are at risk while that perpetrator is free.”
