Tomorrow, an athlete will realise a lifelong dream.Sean McCann is due to compete in the heats of the Commonwealth Games swimming 400m freestyle in Glasgow’s Tollcross International Swimming Centre, the first major step on a journey that he hopes will end at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.The Commonwealths is a multi-sport competition held every four years between member states of the Commonwealth of Nations and their territories, and has become more of a sporting curio in recent iterations, ranking well below the Olympics.It means this is far from the year’s most high-profile race, but it could well be one of the most poignant. McCann is the younger brother of Madeleine McCann, a British girl who went missing in May 2007 while on a family holiday in Portugal. Madeleine was three at the time, and sleeping in the apartment with Sean and his twin sister, Amelie, while their parents ate at a nearby restaurant in Praia da Luz, a resort on the western Algarve coast.Gerry and Kate McCann with their twins Amelie (left) and Sean in Praia da Luz in 2007 (Alban Donohoe/AFP via Getty Images)Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry, led a high-profile search for their daughter, while London’s Metropolitan Police opened Operation Grange in 2011 and continues to work with authorities in Portugal and Germany to try and find her. Almost two decades later, she remains missing. The unsolved case has become a source of endless fascination in Britain and beyond, and a cottage industry for the media. It has spawned several books, an eight-part 2019 Netflix documentary — The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann — and barely a week goes by without a fresh theory circulating on social media.Against this tragic backdrop, Sean’s rise to become an elite swimmer is even more remarkable. He was just two when Madeleine disappeared, and has never given a media interview about his sister, but has inevitably been the subject of significant interest since he was named as part of Scotland’s team for the Commonwealth Games, where he will also compete in the 800m and 1500m races.