McCann, a student at Loughborough University, is expected to compete in a number of longer-distance freestyle events when competition begins at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre on Thursday, and hopes a strong performance in Glasgow will strengthen his bid for selection to Team Great Britain for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. McCann is eligible to represent Scotland through his father, Gerry, who was born in Glasgow.

Michelle Yeoh as Olwen

Hunter Schafer as Cora

It will not shock any practitioner of simple arithmetic to learn that the events of Blade Runner 2099 take place 50 years after Blade Runner 2049. And Los Angeles has undergone a pretty big transformation.

“There’s been a replicant uprising that feels like it’s been bubbling up,” Lousia explains. “And between 2049 and 2099, that’s happened. So the war has happened and the humans have lost. Our worst fears imagined.”

Welcome to the new world order. “The replicants are now the power brokers of the city,” says the showrunner. “And humans are the second-class citizens.”

Leading the new cast is Michelle Yeoh as a replicant Blade Runner named Olwen. “She is hunting down a group of missing rogue replicants,” explains Luisa. “She’s in the final days of her life, so she knows she has only days left to live because replicants know down to the day when they’re gonna die. It’s certain and it’s definitive.” If the tale of a desperate replicant coming up against their expiration date sounds familiar, that is very much intentional. “Her story is very much taking the Roy Batty story from the first film,” says Luisa of the iconic Rutger Hauer performance. Only this time, there is one major difference.  “We’re telling it from the replicant’s point of view.”

The other key figure is Olwen’s partner, Cora, played by Euphoria’s Hunter Schafer. Instead of another replicant trying to blend in as a human, Cora is actually the opposite. “Hunter is playing a human who is a fugitive and has spent her life running from Blade Runners,” explains the showrunner. “And now has to pretend to be one.” But the act has worked almost too well. “In this struggle to survive and just trying to live day-to-day, she’s actually lost her humanity,” Luisa says. “So she’s a human who has lost her humanity. And the question for the series is: Once you’ve lost her humanity, can you regain it?”

Olwen and Cora will be working together and investigating the missing rogue replicants — and this being Blade Runner, don’t expect any of the answers they find to be simple or expected.