Athlete Academy Success Stories: Lexy Gillies

Next up in our Athlete Academy Success Stories, focussing on the journeys of some of The Athlete Academy Alumni, is none other than Scotland Netball International Lexy Gillies!

Lexy joined us while she was still a student at Boroughmuir High School and playing netball locally for Edinburgh Accies Netball Club. She was already a talent on the netball court, but joined the Athlete Academy to improve her strength and power and help reduce injury risk in order to maximise her opportunities for Regional and National Team selections. Lexy began started 1-1 Coaching with Rob, before transitioning to be coached by Orestis.

During her time with the athlete academy, Lexy’s hard work paid of with selection to represent Scotland at the U17 Netball Europe Competition, as well as the Commonwealth Youth Games in 2023. She was also selected to Captain Scotland U19s in a test match against Wales U19 in 2024.

Lexy trained with The Athlete Academy up until August 2024 when she left Edinburgh to move to Glasgow to study at the University of Strathclyde. 

Shortly after joining Strathclyde’s 1st team, she was selected for the Scotland U21s and helped the team secure first place at the World Youth Cup Qualifiers in September 2024.

In February 2025, whilst training and studying full time at Strathclyde, Lexy received her first Senior International call up to the represent the Scottish Thistles at the PacAus Series in Brisbane, Australia. In her debut tour there she officially became Scottish Thistle Cap #228 and gained 5 senior international caps, finishing the tournament in 2nd place.

After rounding up a historic season for Strathclyde netball club, Lexy received the Duncan Mathieson Trophy for ‘Best First Year’ at Strathclyde’s Sports Awards Ball.

Unfortunately, in June 2025 Lexy was diagnosed a stress fracture in her left foot which ruled her out of competing at the World Youth Cup in September. Despite being off the court, she began the 2025/26 season nominated as Vice Captain for Strathclyde’s 1st team and Scotland U21s team and was awarded Strathclyde’s Jack Dunlop Scholarship for the following academic year.

In November 2025, she finally made her return to court 5 months post injury and gained selection back into the Scotland Thistles Squad for the Celtic Cup where Scotland finished in 2nd place.

Fast forward to May 2026, Strathclyde had another historic season, with their highest ever finish in the British Universities and Colleges Sports League (BUCS) and National Trophy competitions, with their National League finals coming up this weekend!

Lexy has been selected for the 2026 Commonwealth Games Long Squad and will soon begin the selection camps with the hope of making the final competition squad to represent Scotland at Glasgow 2026 in July.

Here’s what Lexy’s dad Lachlan had to say about the experience with The Athlete Academy:

“My daughter is a netball player who attended the Athlete Academy over several years for strength and conditioning training. The Academy was a central resource in her development and success.

Not only did it help with her overall physical development, but it also played a huge role in injury prevention, ensuring she could train and compete strongly and safely. She developed a sound understanding of training techniques and best practices, which gave her the confidence to apply these outside of her regular sessions when training on her own and she has now carried all the learning forward, integrating this foundation into her current S&C regime as an adult athlete.

Thanks Rob and everyone at Athlete Academy for your support and the part you all played in elevating her to becoming an athlete at the senior international level at such a young age.

Can’t recommend you guys enough.“

We can’t wait to see what the future holds for Lexy and we’ll be cheering her on!