Medal comedown was real but I have found silver lining
Jamieson reflects on post-Olympic blues 10 years on
IYou aim for something so long, it ends up becoming your identity
T’S ten years to the day since Michael Jamieson’s world changed forever. Indeed, the Scot’s silver medal at London 2012 was a beacon of hope in arguably a time of despair for British swimming.
Team GB took only three medals in the pool back then, with Jamieson’s their best result alongside two bronze for Rebecca Adlington.
This was, of course, before the emergence of Adam Peaty. Before Duncan Scott and Tom Dean. Before medals at major championships were expected and delivered.
A decade ago, Jamieson came into the men’s 200metres breaststroke under the radar despite finishing fourth at the World Championships a year earlier.
The frustration of just missing out on the podium provided the drive he required to storm home for silver in London. Had the race been a few metres more, he may even have won it as he closed in on Daniel Gyurta, the Hungarian who broke the world record to win gold.
It was, in Jamieson’s own words, ‘the day that everything came together for the first time ever’.
Now the 33-year-old has no regrets, only reflections, despite admitting that he struggled through a post-Olympic comedown.
Perhaps that seeped through to the Commonwealth Games in
Glasgow two years later. Jamieson was the poster boy for the event in his hometown, only to be upstaged by compatriot Ross Murdoch in the 200m final.
Yet, it would be remiss not to note that Murdoch’s time was quicker than Jamieson’s performance in the Olympic final — and only 0.29 hundredths of a second off the world record. In short, it took an inspired performance to deny him.
‘I have really fond memories and if I could have been involved in sport at any time, it would have been for the home Olympic Games in London and Commonwealths in Glasgow,’ says 33-year-old Jamieson now. ‘But so much of my identity for so long was rooted in sport.
‘Post-Olympic comedown is a very real thing. It’s after aiming for something for so long and your sole focus in life is trying to achieve this one — when you zoom out — fairly unimportant goal, one single sports performance. Athletes run into trouble when that becomes their identity and that was an area that I really struggled with.
‘But I think the conversation on that front has matured and evolved over the last few years where athletes get a lot more support now and there’s more acceptance of being able to have another focus alongside your sports career, without the fear of diluting your performance.’
Having recently given up a short-term club coaching career, Jamieson says working with younger athletes helped him to rediscover himself after losing his identity as a professional athlete during retirement.
‘I never planned to go into coaching, I didn’t think I would ever enjoy it,’ he says. ‘But I actually found that being accountable to the athletes I was working with has helped me work through my own personal transition out of the sport.’
While he may have had his issues since retirement, in terms of legacy there is little doubt of what Jamieson accomplished.
Fellow Scot and 2014 Commonwealth Games gold medallist Dan Wallace echoed the significance of Jamieson’s Olympic silver medal at a time when British Swimming wasn’t where it wanted to be.
‘We already had Becky Adlington but look at the likes of Adam Peaty, the best breaststroker arguably the world has ever seen,’ Wallace says.
‘There wouldn’t be an Adam Peaty without a Michael Jamieson. Michael inspired, not just me, but more specifically the likes of Adam and Ross (Murdoch) — breaststrokers, swimmers, and athletes across the country.
‘It’s a boy from Glasgow winning an Olympic medal in a time that is extremely impressive and would still go up against the best today.’
Alas, Jamieson’s days competing in the pool are over after he retired in 2016. But he is not done yet. Far from it.
With around 1,600 children learning to swim at the Michael Jamieson Swim Academy every week, he is tapping into his own experiences.
By focusing on swimming from a life-skill perspective, not only is he passionate about leaving a legacy that celebrates performance but also well-being, self-worth and sportsmanship.
He also wants to work alongside the National Lottery to help support young upcoming athletes achieve their dreams, just as he began to do ten years ago.
‘The National Lottery is the engine behind UK sport and absolutely vital for so many athletes competing at an elite level,’ he says.
Jamieson adds: ‘One thing that swimming as a sport really needs to consider is how people can get more access to the athletes.
‘Everyone loves sport because of the connection to stories, that escapism, being able to find something new and see the success stories but it’s really difficult to get access to that in swimming because you’ve got goggles and a swimming cap on, and you get 30 seconds in front of a camera after your race.
‘I’ve been working on a really cool project in terms of the evolution of image rates and how we incorporate athletic data, training analysis and performance analysis.
‘So many athletes have their own entity and ownership over their data so I’m looking into ways to licence and monetise that. A commercial pool would be an exciting evolution that I’d like to see in the future.’