Two weeks after the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, Chad le Clos was sitting at a desk writing his matric exams, possibly more than a little distracted and dreaming of the Olympics two years hence. He had left India as a new star, one for the future. As it turned out, it was a near future that turned into 16 years of winning medals for South Africa.New Delhi and the Commonwealth Games were the making of both Le Clos and Cameron van der Burgh as Olympic champions. The former won five medals in Delhi and the latter two. After Van der Burgh had won in the 100m breaststroke, he held up his hands to show the words “Ke Nako” written on them. A phrase used during the 2010 football World Cup, Van der Burgh said simply: “It is our time to shine.”After Le Clos won his first medal on the first day of competition, he pointed to his name on his swimming cap. “What’s my name?” Muhammad Ali taunted Ernie Terrell with the same phrase in 1967 as he dished out a hiding.Chad le Clos celebrates with Michael Houlie, left, and Pieter Coetzé after winning his 21st Commonwealth Games medal in Glasgow. (Andrew Couldridge) I was in New Delhi in 2010, one of just two South African-written journalists there, and even then it had been a last-minute decision to send me. I had been in Melbourne in 2006, where South Africa won 38 medals, five more than they did in Delhi, but Team South Africa had around 320 athletes in Australia. There were just 145 in India.Sascoc had a “no passengers” policy, hoping to get more bang for their buck, but while on the face of it the return of medals per person taken and money spent was impressive in Delhi, I thought they had missed a trick. Surely the Commonwealth Games are the preparation for the big show, the Olympics, with London and Sascoc’s “12 from 12” prediction still uppermost in the mind.An athlete needs to experience a game to get a sense for the big occasion. Most of South Africa’s medal winners in modern times had okay first Olympics before coming back hard and successful. Van der Burgh was 10th in the semifinals of the 100m breaststroke. In London he set a world record on his way to taking gold. In Delhi they played a sped-up version of the South African anthem at the Dr SP Mukherjee Swimming Stadium after Le Clos had won South Africa’s first gold medal of the Commonwealth Games. “I was very emotional. I think if the anthem had been any longer I might have cried,” said Le Clos. “I was so nervous before the race and standing on the block, probably more than I’ve been at any race before.”Read: KEVIN MCCALLUM | Glasgow showed us all how to host a Games — now it’s doing it againHe was nervous in London, and Hill decided to make him swim the relay heats in the morning to distract him from the big show against Phelps in the evening. After he had won, despite those sneaky looks to his side to keep an eye on Phelps, he stood in the mixed zone a little befuddled. When Phelps walked past to speak to the US media, he stopped talking to us for a few seconds as he watched his hero walk by. The moment had yet to sink in. @bbcsport 19 Commonwealth Games medals… and counting 🤯 South African swimmer Chad le Clos is now the most decorated male athlete in Commonwealth Games history 👏 #CommonwealthGames #ChadLeClos ♬ original sound - BBC Sport Le Clos looked born to be on the big stage. Like his hero, Michael Phelps, he has flat, flexible feet and ankles, an advantage in the pool. “It sounds crazy, but I actually thought I was Michael when I turned because I remember how he used to do it. When I turned, I turned that way and looked at him. It was like a trigger point where I just felt like I could try to do something special here,” he said at the time.Le Clos will come home from the Glasgow Commonwealth Games as a South African great, certainly our greatest Olympian, swimmer and athlete. They are calling him the Commonwealth Games GOAT, the Greatest of All Time, for his 21 medals. He has four Olympic medals (one gold, three silvers) and 16 short-course and long-course world titles.At 34 you would presume he is done. Not yet. He is eyeing Los Angeles in 2028. It would be a deserved farewell Games. One more set of exams to go.