On Sunday night, Le Clos clinched the silver medal in the 200m butterfly for men by touching the wall in Birmingham in a time of 1 min 55.89 sec.

Lewis Clareburt of New Zealand stopped the clock in 1 min 55.60 sec to beat Le Clos to the gold by just 0.29 sec.

The medal has taken Le Clos' tally to 18 at the Commonwealth Games which equals the record of the sports shooters, Phillip Adams and Mick Gault, for the most medals by an individual athlete.

Following his race, Le Clos admitted that he was even prepared to cut his finger off for a win.

“I’ll take the win over everything. I would have cut my finger off to win tonight, that’s the truth. I was so desperate to win – it meant everything to me and my family and friends who flew out from back home for this race. So I’m disappointed I let them down. But I left it out there, I gave it my best shot,” he said afterwards.

“But fair play to Lewis, he broke the national record this morning and again tonight – he had a great race.

“It is what it is. I’ll take the medal for sure, but I wanted the gold. That’s what I was planning on coming to do.”

At 19:57 on Monday night Le Clos will be competing in the semi-finals of the 100m butterfly for men along with his fellow South African, Andrew Ross.

Morgan Piek/OFM Sport