After finishing in the cruellest position in championship sport at Tollcross last night, Cameron Brodie offered an insight into the psyche of the competitive athlete.

The Stirling-based swimmer appears to understand fully the things he should be saying and how much satisfaction he should have taken from setting the fastest time in qualifying for the 200 metres butterfly final, before he bettered that substantially to set a new Scottish record of 1 minute 56.59 seconds. Yet there was still clear disappointment over his fourth-place finish.

In an age in which coaches emphasise to their charges that it is all about performances and that the results they are looking for will inevitably follow if they get that right, Brodie consequently acknowledged that he had provided real evidence of the progress he needs to be making. Furthermore it was clear that he was also acutely aware of the importance of carrying himself in a way that would have the best possible impact on team morale.

However, when it comes right down to it the reality is that the vast majority of competitive sportspeople would far rather perform below their best and win things than the other way around. Brodie knows he is going to be increasingly devastated as the realisation of just how close he came to a medal sinks in.

"I said after this morning that I was going to go and win it. I felt like superman after this morning. I feel a hell of a lot worse than that now," he said of the contrasting emotions he had experienced.

"It is my first individual senior Scottish record and that's pretty cool. I'm pretty happy with that but at the end of the day I'm 0.1 away from a medal and the podium and if I had got a medal it would have been repaying my parents. I will go out there and put a smile on my face but in my head . . . there might be some tears tonight."

His parents and all those close to him will, of course, almost certainly feel that he has done them proud by doing as well as he has, not least by out-pacing the world, Olympic and defending Commonwealth champion Chad le Clos in the morning, before the South African rediscovered enough his form in the evening. A hugely impressive swim allowed le Close to surge to a Games record 1.55.07 - more than a second clear of Australia's Grant Irvine and South African compatriot Sebastien Rousseau - when it mattered.

Brodie did have the champion in his sights as they headed for home and that, alongside a noisy home support, probably helped pull that record effort out of him. However, the Scot knew even as he made that third and final turn that le Clos had another gear to engage and that he was almost certain to be beaten.

"I don't know what my splits are but I know that Chad's last 50 is probably his strength and its my weakness, so just to be close to him at 150m felt good," said Brodie. "But I knew he was going to pull away from me. It was the best swim I have ever done so I should be happy, but fourth sucks."

Perhaps that experience will, in itself, prove a valuable spur since it has demonstrated that his scepticism about one of the great sporting truisms has been unfounded.

"That's the first time I have finished fourth and I've heard hundreds of athletes say that fourth is the worst place to finish and I never believed it but it really is, it really, really is," said Brodie.

Once the Scot has recovered from the disappointment of what happened last night he will be better placed to absorb those coaching messages about what his showing here means in terms of his avowed, long-term target of taking part in an Olympics.

Now 21, he is clearly a much superior athlete to the teenager who won a silver medal at the last Commonwealth Games in Delhi. "I'm pretty young," he said. "I still think I'm young enough and my body is fresh enough. I'm top Brit and that's pretty nice and it bodes well for Rio and Gold Coast. I'm not quitting."

There is further encouragement to be drawn, too, from knowing that he is involved with a swimming programme that is moving in the right direction, even if the down-side of that is that what would have been recognised as one of the team's better performances in Delhi is now well and truly over-shadowed by the exploits of others.

"I remember in Delhi when Michael [Jamieson] got a silver and anyone finishing in the top five was a big deal but now, if you don't win gold, you ain't a big deal," Brodie added.