University of Edinburgh student and British swimming champion Archie Goodburn is hoping to break the Scottish breaststroke record—all while campaigning for better brain cancer treatment across the UK following his own diagnosis.

Goodburn, 24, is a member of Team Scotland’s swimming team for the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and part of the University’s Performance Swim Programme.

Having competed in the 2022 Games in Birmingham, he won gold at the 2023 British Swimming Championships in Sheffield in the 50m breaststroke.

However, his career took an unexpected following a diagnosis in 2024 of an incurable form of brain cancer known as oligodendroglioma.

Since then, he has been campaigning for better access to treatment across the country after being given access to a breakthrough drug.

Goodburn said: “It makes up about one to 3% of all brain cancer diagnosis, but the most common brain cancer diagnosis has a prognosis of about 12 to 18 months.

“Unfortunately, brain cancer receives about 1% of the UK’s national cancer funding since 2001, which is an area where we’re trying to advocate for more of.

“My diagnosis makes up a small portion of that, and I’ve had access recently to a breakthrough drug that targets a mutation in my cancer, which has allowed my tumour’s growth to stabilise and allowed me to train quite successfully the last 12 months, re-breaking my own Scottish record, and obviously qualifying for the games as well in April.”

Goodburn said he “owes a lot” to advocacy groups and to those involved in trials across the country.

On top of his training, Goodburn, who will be 25 when the Games begin, has been studying for an MEng Chemical Engineering degree at the University of Edinburgh.

He will graduate a few weeks before the start of the games.

Explaining how he balances these various aspects of his life, Goodburn said: “I get asked a lot, ‘how have you found studies and training’, but also not often asked how you find balancing your treatment as well, because that’s a good point.

“Although my tumours are currently stable thanks to this drug, I still have regular hospital visits for scans and blood tests.

“Unfortunately, in April I was admitted to A & E because I had a breakthrough seizure just 10 days before the Commonwealth Games trials, and so I was in hospital for about 48 hours trying to recover from this seizure, which then had an extended recovery period.”

Goodburn thanked the support team at the University of Edinburgh for their help during his recovery, including the Performance Sport and academic teams.

He added: “I’m lucky enough to live in the same city with my family, so they’ve been there to give me lifts to the hospital when I need to, because of my driver’s license being taken away because of seizures.”

Ahead of the event, Goodburn said his hopes for the competition would be to beat his “personal best and breaking the Scottish record”.

He added: “Historically that time has always been enough to make the podium at the Games, so that would hopefully result in a medal.”

With Glasgow 2026 being held on home soil for Team Scotland, Goodburn is setting his sights on pleasing the home crowd.

He said: “I’ve just been speaking earlier about how impressive the crowd was in Birmingham in 2022 and hopefully we’ll have more of that in Glasgow. 

“Glasgow never really wants to let down on something like that. I get goosebumps thinking about the noise that hopefully we’ll be walking out to as Team Scotland come our races, and see how much that can squeeze out of us for our best possible performances.”

• This article is provided by the news agency Deadline News Limited and published here with permission. 
• Contact Deadline News Limited if you would like to use any or all of this article. 
• [email protected] or [email protected]