By Lisa Gray, PA Sport

Craig MacLean insists he always knew he would bring home an Olympic medal - despite being the first Scottish cyclist to do so along with team-mate Chris Hoy.

The duo - as well as Jason Queally - claimed the silver medal in Sydney for the three-man Olympic sprint event contributing to Great Britain's best medals haul in decades.

The 29-year-old, speaking after arriving back at Glasgow Airport, said: "I knew we could get a medal if we did our best ride.

"We really surpassed ourselves and took 0.9sec off our personal best which is kind of unheard of really so we are all delighted.

"When you get that close to the gold you think you could have got it but the times we did individually as part of the race meant it could have been quite difficult to go any faster."

The French team took the gold medal in the event but MacLean is confident that it won't be long before the British team reach a similar level.

He added: "They just keep moving the goal posts but we are catching up with them."

MacLean was joined on the flight back to Scotland by sprinter Ian Mackie - who was left bitterly disappointed after being dropped from the men's relay team while in Sydney.

Even so the flyer described the British athletes performance in the Olympics as "inspirational".

He said: "It was very inspirational what the team did and certainly it has been the best athletics team in a long, long time.

"Although I had a personal disappointment that I didn't get to run seeing what the rest of the teams did was magnificent.

"Especially those individuals who had been injured and came back from an injury to take medals."