Wilkie tells silver star Ross to keep going for gold

Murdoch went into the 200m breaststroke final in Berlin as fastest man in the world this year but Germany's Marco Koch held off his late surge, forcing the Scot to settle for another silver medal to go with his earlier one from the 100m event.

The 20-year-old's time of 2mins 07.77secs was pipped by Koch in 2:07.47 - the sixth-fastest ever.

With 2012 Olympics silver medallist Michael Jamieson - who lost to Murdoch in the first night of swimming finals at the Commonwealth Games - also eyeing a comeback, Wilkie is excited about the Scots' prospects at next year's World Championships and 2016 Rio Olympics.

But the only person to have held British, World, European, Olympic, US and Commonwealth titles at the same time warned the pair that, in purely historical terms, winning is everything and second is nothing.

Wilkie admitted: "It is phenomenal that we have two of the fastest 200m swimmers in the world. We've never had that before in British swimming, let alone Scottish swimming. But it's all about proving yourself in an arena like the Olympics. That is what really separates the men from the boys."

"Every record is there to be broken. I am still the only Scot to win all the major championship titles - and that's what these guys have to do if they want that mantle."

On Murdoch's narrow loss to the German yesterday, Wilkie said: "The way Ross swam at the Commonwealth Games, you would have expected him to beat Koch but the home crowd played a huge role and the German guy was a little bit too strong.

"I think Ross will look upon this as a missed opportunity. Of course, if you'd offered him two European silvers at the start of the summer, he would have taken it.

"But Glasgow changed everything for him and he might see this result as a bit of a failure."

Welsh swimmer Jazz Carlin became the fifth Brit to top the podium in Berlin when she won last night's 800m freestyle.