Eight years after he was expelled from the Olympic Village in Sydney for wearing a rival sponsor's swim suit, Mark Foster will lead his country into the Olympic Stadium for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games.

The sprint swimmer, who at 38 is the oldest member of the Great Britain squad, was tonight voted by team-mates to carry the Union Jack on the occasion of his fifth Olympic Games.

He is the first swimmer to carry the flag in an opening ceremony since Anita Lonsborough at the Tokyo Games in 1964.

It is a moment of redemption for Foster, who has had his run-ins with the authorities running his sport. The short-course specialist announced his retirement in 2006 after disagreeing with the training methods of Bill Sweetenham, the former national swimming coach. He returned to competition a year later in pursuit of his first Olympic medal. His Olympic comeback was assured when he set a new personal best and British record of 21.96 seconds in the 50 metre freestyle this year.

Expert View

All that talk about the target of finishing in eighth place is a load of nonsense

Simon Barnes

• More

• Post a comment

Beijing Games fuels great British expectations

The impressive facilities and venues in China - whatever Team GB's medal haul - will set the bar high for London in 2012

• Usain Bolt knows where he stands on path to sprint glory: it's double or nothing

• Try a little of everything - just don't eat too much

• Great Britain sets the bar high for Beijing

Multimedia

• Simon Barnes in Beijing

• Bring back the tug-of-war

• Top 100 Olympic athletes of all time

Related Links

• Olympic torch arrives in Beijing

• Beijing Games fuels great British expectations

Foster, who made his Olympic debut at Seoul in 1988, was told of his selection at a Team GB reception hosted by the British Ambassador Sir William Ehrman at his official residence in Beijing in the company of HRH The Princess Royal and Gerry Sutcliffe, the sports minister.

“I was blown away when I was told, it was a big surprise and a huge honour,” he said. “Some of the most wonderful names in British sport have been Olympic flag-bearers. I really wanted to be picked but I didn’t totally believe I would be,” he added. “My heart was pumping when the announcement was made. Making the Olympic Games this time around was fantastic in itself, but this has really topped it off. It’s phenomenal.”

Foster reached the 50m freestyle finals at both Barcelona in 1992 and Sydney in 2000. He missed the Athens Games in 2004 because Sweetenham refused to pick him after he missed the selection time by one-hundredth of a second at the Olympic trials. His appeal on the grounds he had been hampered by a shoulder injury was dismissed by an independent panel.

During his career, he has set five world records, seven European records, nine Commonwealth records and 19 British records.