MICHAEL JAMIESON has forced the retirement of one rival, mourned the tragic death of another and benefited from injury to a third – all in Olympic year – yet the Scot insists it is only now that the Games have dawned upon him.

Chris Cook, Kris Gilchrist and James Kirton featured for Britain in the breast-stroke events at the last Olympics in Beijing in 2008 but four years on Jamieson and an altogether younger brigade are set to head to London.

Jamieson has since witnessed Gilchrist call it quits after he failed to qualify for a second Games, the sudden death of Norwegian Alexander Dale Oen, as well as the injury to Daniel Sliwinski, which handed him a 100m spot.

And he is quietly confident of success, having won Common-wealth 200m silver in 2010 and finished fifth in the world final in 2011.

The 23-year-old, who is due to star in the 100m breaststroke heats this Sunday as well as the 200m when the Games progress, said: "Over the last few months the Olympics have been quite easy to forget.

"It is a pleasure to be part of the team and the taper has started and the intensity and volume has come down and hopefully with that the performances and speed work in training will start to come through.

"There are a couple of great years of sport ahead with the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and I am really looking forward to putting in a good performance this summer and keeping the momentum going over the next couple of years.

"There may be one or two guys that have got a little bit of daylight behind them but beyond that there's going to be a real opportunity."

Despite swimming in the Olympic Aquatics Centre at the trials in March, Jamieson readily admits he doesn't know what to expect from the crowd or whether he will be able to put their support to good use.

However, five-time Olympian Mark Foster, who won international medals in Manchester, Edinburgh and Sheffield, is in no doubt that Jamieson will feed off the positive generated.

He said: "The British fans are like the 12th man, it makes a difference to the performance and I say go out there and show off, show that you are proud to be British."

Bank of Scotland, proud supporter of Team GB as well as proud partner of the London 2012 Olympic Games. Get closer to the Games at bankofscotland.co.uk/London2012