MICHAEL Jamieson is confident that he has put the disappointments of the past year behind him and is now firmly on course to win gold at the Rio Olympics.
The Glaswegian swimmer, a 200-metres silver medallist at London 2012, was surprisingly beaten into second place by fellow-Scot Ross Murdoch at last summer's Commonwealth Games. He failed to find his best form in the early part of this season, and has been omitted from the British team for next month's FINA World Championships in the Russian city of Kazan.
But he has just returned from a series of European meets in which he began to get back to his best, and is now targeting the United States national championships in San Antonio, Texas, in August. "I am in a great place now - I've been back four or five weeks and had some really encouraging results in Europe," the 26-year-old said yesterday at the official opening of the newly-refurbished London 2012 Legacy Pool at the University of Bath, where he is based.
"I am looking forward going into an Olympic year under the radar a little and if I didn't think I could better my result from 2012 next summer I would not still be involved in the sport. The Olympics is the pinnacle of the sport and the event everyone cares about.
"I've got got bags of experience, I know how to handle these big-stage events, and physically I know what I need to do to get in prime condition. I had an amazing experience in London and I want to go one better."
Jamieson admitted that he had reacted badly to his defeat by Murdoch at Glasgow 2014, but insisted it was important to be honest about such emotions rather than pretending that all was well. "It was a poor result in my eyes, as I was in a pretty privileged position with a Commonwealth Games in my home town," he said.
"I think a lot of the reaction from that was self-inflicted. I am in the sport to win medals and I have won a number of major medals.
"I have not been afraid to say things over the last few years, but maybe that is actually making my job a little bit harder. It would be easier to give the bog-standard answer and gloss over the disappointment, but I want people to relate to my journey as an athlete and I am not frightened to share what my goals and targets are."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article