Burnett, who attended Lord Williams's School in Thame, broke the national record during the qualifying heat for the men's 4x100metre freestyle relay.

The 25-year-old clocked a time of 48.20secs, and the team, which also consisted of Adam Brown, Ben Hockin and Ross Davenport, smashed the British relay record by five seconds.

In Monday's final Britain finished in 3:12.87, a time which again shaved nearly a second off the British record, and which would have won the gold medal at the Olympics in Athens four years ago.

However, in an extraordinarily high quality race, in which the United States, pushed all the way by France, broke the world record, Burnett's team finished last.

Speaking at her home in Swan Gardens, Tetsworth, on Monday, his mother Melanie Robinson told of her pride at seeing her son once again performing well, and how she now hopes he will now carry on competing- even right up to the London Olympics in four years time.

"He has not been swimming well, it's been two years since has done a personal best, but he looks like he's got a lot of confidence now," she said.

"He has e-mailed me, he just said how relieved he was he had got his form back.

"Overall he has done two consistent times which shows he can swim fast again and can churn them out one after the other.

" He may even feel sorry himself that he's not doing the (individual) front crawl."

Describing her emotions when watching her son swim, she said: "I just find it really worrying. It's almost like a physical pain.

"I just know how upset he has been with his performances, he has felt like he has let everybody down. He's been in a real state of flux, I think if he couldn't have gone to the Olympics he may have given up, or thought carefully about his future, but perhaps now he will carry on. I hope he will.

"He's on the up- he's got more to give. I will be encouraging him to coninue, I think he's got through his bad patch," she added.