THE challenges faced by Michael Jamieson over the last few years have been well documented. His silver medal at London 2012 appeared to be just the start of things but, in fact, it was the peak. Defeat by Ross Murdoch at Glasgow 2014 was followed by failure to qualify for Team GB for Rio 2016 and when Jamieson announced his retirement earlier this year, he simultaneously revealed that at certain points throughout his career, he suffered from depression.

There are few sportsmen’s careers that illustrate the brutality of elite sport quite as comprehensively as Jamieson’s. When he announced his retirement in February, he talked of wanting to put everything from the last few years to bed. I doubted he would return to the cut and thrust of swimming – a bit of punditry maybe, but it seemed unlikely that he would rejoin the world of elite swimming in any capacity.

Yet, he has surprised us all. Last weekend, Jamieson was at the Scottish Short-Course Swimming Championships in Edinburgh, but this time in a coaching role. Along with his London 2012 teammate, Englishman Craig Gibbons, Jamieson has set up Natare Swimming Club in West London. Earlier this week in these pages, the 29 year-old talked about how only a limited number of swimmers will be part of the club to ensure that the coaching can be individualised and his duty of care to the athletes will be at the forefront of his mind, daily.

Jamieson’s return to swimming so soon after his retirement has come as a surprise to almost everyone in the sport but he is, he told me, absolutely loving coaching and there will be few who doubt that he has the makings of a top class coach. His reintegration with swimming does not stop there though – he was invited by Scottish Swimming to give a talk last Sunday to the Commonwealth Games swimming team that will be competing in Gold Coast, and he duly accepted.

Jamieson is better placed than most to talk about the extreme highs and lows of elite sport – his Olympic silver medal is something that few other individuals in this country can boast yet his Glasgow 2014 disappointment and subsequent Olympic heartbreak must have been crushing.

When we spoke, Jamieson commented that only recently has he felt truly comfortable with no longer being involved in the sport as an elite athlete and few would have blamed him if he had wanted to take a few years to establish himself in a new career before he laid bare the trials and tribulations of his swimming career.

Yet not only was he comfortable talking about his mental health issues in the press – something that is vital if the stigma is to be diminished – but the fact that he is also happy to share so openly his story with the Scottish team of the struggles he endured is admirable beyond words.

In the Scottish squad that Jamieson addressed will have been a number of swimmers who consider the breaststroker to be their hero but what is more remarkable is that a number of those swimmers were Jamieson’s peers, including Murdoch, whose Glasgow 2014 victory over Jamieson effectively signalled the beginning of the end of the Glaswegian’s career. To lay bare every weakness, every obstacle – some of which he overcame and others he didn’t – as well as every mistake is brave in the extreme.

Athletes learn to hide every hint of frailty because elite sport is not a place for those who have chinks in their armour. Yet for someone who was such an astonishingly good athlete, Jamieson has a remarkable lack of ego. I’m not sure there’s many recently-retired athletes, particularly those whose careers finished on a low, who would be happy to divulge every misstep. However, Jamieson has no hesitation in revealing that he is, despite his incredible success, eminently vulnerable. That takes balls. And what he has also shown is that even the lowest of low points can be overcome.

Jamieson’s development as a coach will be interesting to observe. As he admitted himself, coaching can be a lonely vocation. Yet he seems to have the drive to succeed. There are few who are better qualified to become a good coach. And if he sticks with it, what an addition to the Scottish coaching scene he could be.