Scott's goal is to be the most decorated British Olympian at Los Angeles 2028. With two medals in Paris, gold in the 4x200m freestyle and silver in the 200m individual medley - in which Marchand won gold - Scott has now won a total of eight Olympic medals in three Games.

Compared with other British athletes, sprint cyclist Jason Kenny remains the British athlete with the most medals, with nine. He is tied with Bradley Wiggins in second place. Chris Hoy is third with seven. Scott, 27, wants to go further than his own record, although he sees himself as beneath such legends as Kenny and Hoy.

"I'm swimming almost better than ever. It was 11 events in eight days in Paris. I swam for eight of the nine days. I finished the week and felt it was a great week of swimming for me, being able to anchor some great relays and swim individually pretty well too. I'm really pleased with how it went, but I still have a lot of things left to do in the sport," he explained on his return to the pool to coach children at the Peak Leisure Centre in Stirling.

The challenge for Scott is to beat Marchand, who broke Michael Phelps' Olympic record - with whom he shares a coach - in the 200m sprint and came within 0.06 seconds of Ryan Lochte's world record. Of course, he is keen not to focus on the result but on the work that needs to be done to achieve it.

Duncan Scott is part of a ChangeMaker athlete initiative, a partnership between the National Lottery operator, Allwyn, Team GB, ParalympicsGB and UK Sport to support athletes who want to help social impact projects they are passionate about, whether they are grassroots sport, sustainability, mental and physical wellbeing or LGBTQIA inclusion projects.