Kris Gilchrist says his move to Bath has reignited his passion for swimming – and determination to be involved in the London Olympics.

The 28-year-old, who represented Britain in the 100m and 200m breaststroke at the 2008 Beijing Games, admits he fell out of love with the sport following an unhappy training spell in Paris.

But since joining the flourishing British Gas Intensive Training Centre at the University of Bath, the Scotsman has regained his focus and puts his renewed desire down to his surroundings.

"How could I not love it here?" he beamed. "Bath is such a nice city.

"After leaving Paris, which is such an amazing place to live as well, it would have been difficult not to have come somewhere like this.

"I trained in Edinburgh, where I was born, until I was around 24 and then I moved to Paris for two years, following my coach.

"I had some negative team-mates, though, and I was in a bad place when I left because of the way the programme went. It might sound a bit dramatic to call it last ditch but I had a choice of whether to stop swimming or carry on.

"I looked at places that I thought would bring me a new lease of life and thought of Bath. I came here for a week's trial and Dave McNulty, the head coach, really sold the programme to me.

"The training facilities are second to none, absolutely everything we need is here, and the staff were also a selling point. There's not just swimming coaches but also strength and conditioning, physios and sports scientists.

"We're spoilt, to be honest, but I guess British Swimming have decided that's what it takes to get the results.

"I can honestly say I've never loved swimming as much as I did this year and it's a combination of all those things – living in a lovely city, the great facilities we have here and the support staff."

Being in Bath means Gilchrist also gets to train alongside the country's two other top breaststroke swimmers, ITC colleagues Michael Jamieson and Andrew Willis.

Both of them reached the World Championship final in July but while Gilchrist failed to progress through the heats in Shanghai, he did have the consolation of posting the fastest time of all three during 2011.

Competition between the trio is friendly but is set to increase in the coming weeks, with just two breaststroke slots available in the British team for the London Olympics.

"It means one of my best friends is going to beat another of my best friends to an Olympic place but that's sport," said Gilchrist.

"There are positives and negatives – the negative is it's hard to qualify, the positive is that, because of the domestic competition, we are in a great position.

"At the moment we are ranked sixth, eighth and ninth in the world, so whoever qualifies will have a great chance at the Games.

"That's another good reason for me to be here, we push each other on in training and get the most out of every single session. I don't want them to beat me and they don't want me to beat them.

"We all know we are very lucky – we're spoilt here in Bath and we're spoilt that we have a home Olympics, it's going to be a once-in-a-lifetime event.

"The only taster I've had of major home support is when I was fortunate enough to be at a World Championship event in Manchester in 2008.

"There were about 5,000 British people there, all cheering me on. That was pretty special, so multiply that by three or four for London and it will be unreal."