• Swimming

Jamieson: Heart scare shows how hard I'm working

Michael Jamieson had to have his heart restarted after an intensive training session © PA Photos

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Olympic silver medallist Michael Jamieson has revealed how his recent heart scare shows how committed he is to achieve success at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

Jamieson had to have his heart restarted after a training session last week, but has since returned to training after being cleared to resume.

With Glasgow at the front of his mind, Jamieson is inspired to overcome a poor showing at the World Championships and is pushing his limits in a bid to be fully fit for the event in his home city.

"I got what I wanted in London but this is home - it doesn't get much closer," Jamieson told BBC Sport. "It is where I grew up swimming and it's where I realised I wanted to become an athlete. I think last week just shows how hard I'm working towards getting the results that everyone else is looking for."

The 25-year-old admitted he was proud of how hard he pushed himself before his health scare, but was quick to praise the high standards of medical care he received when taken to the Royal United Hospital Bath.

"I was just taking pride in the fact the specialist had only ever seen this in a few other athletes - all Olympic medallists," Jamieson said. "The idea is to go from rest to maximum effort as quickly as possible.

"It's arguably the best way to train but it does put your system under quite a lot of stress. After reaching my maximum heart rate, my heart just started to jump and came out of rhythm.

"After the doctors had a look at me, they took me down to accident and emergency in Bath and the service there was amazing. I was sedated through the night and they gave me a bit of a jolt to put my heart back into the correct rhythm.

"I couldn't wait to get back to my team-mates and give them stick about how hard I had been working."

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