The Isle of Wight's Darren Mew restored his reputation as Britain's number one sprint breaststroker with a second victory at the British short course championships in Manchester - then took the first plane back to the scene of his greatest disappointment, writes ROGER GUTTERIDGE.

Mew, who was "gutted" after coming seventh in an Olympic final won in a time slower than his Commonwealth record, on Saturday added the national 50m breaststroke gold to the 100m title he won on Friday.

Then he joined most of his British team mates on a flight to Athens to take part in last night's closing ceremony in the Olympic stadium.

World number two Mew, whose 50m time of 27.26 at Manchester was more than half-a-second outside his Commonwealth record for that distance, now plans to take a break from training while considering his swimming future.

Mew said: "I feel drained after the Olympics and I have some thinking to do about the future. But in my heart I'm still a competitor and I know I would miss it. I expect that's what will prompt me to carry on."

Meanwhile, Alex Savage's championships ended in rollercoaster fashion on Saturday - 24 hours ahead of schedule.

The 18-year-old experienced highs and lows in quick succession as she attempted two semi-finals and a final in less than an hour.

Her session began with a disqualification in the 100m breaststroke semi-final and ended with 14th place in the 100m butterfly semis.

As a result she failed to reach the final of either event in last night's closing session and was back home at Totton in time for Sunday lunch.

But in between she finished fourth in the 100m individual medley final against opponents who included Olympic team members Lisa Chapman and Alison Sheppard, who took the gold and silver, and fellow international Claire Windeatt, who took the bronze.

Savage's time of 1:02.86 was just 0.23sec slower than Windeatt's.

Her fourth place should be enough to give her a second swim at the European short course championships in Vienna in December following her silver-winning display in the 200m medley.

The Ferndown Otters swimmer said: "Personally I don't think I did anything wrong in the breaststroke, but the official said that my hands didn't touch the wall simultaneously. It's disappointing because my time would have got me into the final. But I will learn from it and make sure I touch properly in future.

"I only had time for two lengths of swim-down before the 100 medley final so I was quite pleased with my performance in that.

"I was quite tired for the butterfly semi-final so I wasn't expecting anything extraordinary in that."

Savage added: "Although it wasn't a great ending to the championships, I have swum on or better than my pbs on all my events.

"I've also achieved what I came here to do, which was qualify for the Europeans. It was asking a lot to swim two semi-finals and a final in less than a hour but I'm glad I did it. It would have been a good session without the disqualification!"