Lamont moved to Edinburgh in September to study at the city’s Napier University and joined the University of Edinburgh’s senior swimming programme. He had the intention of improving his 100m backstroke time in time for trials for Rio 2016 — 50m was the swimmer’s natural distance.

However a shoulder injury meant he couldn’t train consistently and Lamont came to the decision to retire from swimming and focus on his studies and future career.

He told SportScene: “Injuries were the main issue. I just couldn’t get any momentum going in training. It became a bit of a lottery how my shoulder would react, quite often I would get a lot of pain in it.

“I had been thinking about it for a while to be honest. After the Commonwealth Games I was quite happy with what I had been able to achieve in my swimming career, with everything considered I felt it was best for me to focus on uni and my career after uni.” It is an early retirement for a swimmer who has competed at such a high level, aged just 23, but the former West Dunbartonshire Amateur Swim club member harbours no regrets over the decision. He believes he can look back with pride over his time in the pool — and admits not having to put himself through a rigorous training regime each day is a big relief.

He explained: “Honestly I have not really missed it so far, maybe I am still in the honeymoon period of enjoying not training. Maybe when I start hearing my friends talk about the competitions their swimming in I might start to miss it.

“The run up to Glasgow 2014 and actually swimming at it are the highlights of my career I think. Last season before the games I was here there and everywhere competing. I swam in America and in Europe, that was a great experience.” Although Lamont will be focusing on his career away from the pool for the foreseeable future — he is just finishing a honours degree in civil engineering — he hopes to return to the sport at some point in the future.

He said: “Yeah I think I would like to do some part-time coaching in the future. I’d like to thank everyone at West Dunbartonshire Swim Club who helped me when I was there and everyone else who has helped me along the way.”