James Hickman confirmed that he will quit swimming at the end of the year in the wake of his failure to reach the Olympic 100metres butterfly final.

He will bring to an end an 11-year international career which has seen him set a host of British, European, Commonwealth and world records, as well as capture a number of medals.

Hickman was a 200m butterfly gold medallist at the 1998 Commonwealth Games.

"At the end of the year I'll retire. I've had a good year," he said, after his disappointing result.

"I want to go out on a high at the World Short Course Championships in October and the European Short Course Championships in December.

"After that, I'll finally hang up my trunks."

The 28-year-old Mancunian had hoped to round off his Olympic career by making an individual final.

But he will have to be content with racing in the 4x100m medley heats on Friday, and hope to help Team GB reach the final of that event.

Hickman trailed home second last of eight swimmers in the first 100m butterfly semi-final, clocking 53.10seconds.

Referring to his heat, where Hickman clocked 52.91secs, he said: "I'm disappointed because it wasn't as fast as this morning.

"I'm happy to be here and I'm really enjoying my swimming this year.

"I'm going to put everything into the medley really tomorrow because we have a really good team and I think we can do well."