...23-year-old knocked 0.13 sec off mark set at Rio Olympics
Like the Greatest Showman he is, Adam Peaty stepped into the spotlight of the European Championships on Saturday and delivered a performance that merited top billing, powering his way to gold in the 100m breaststroke at Tollcross.
With a world record of precisely 57 seconds, another 13-hundredths stripped off a mark that he has pecked away at like a ravenous woodpecker, it was another astonishing evening in a life less ordinary.
Maddening too, in a peculiar way, for the 23-year-old. He has long coveted the realization of his Project 56, to be the first to swim his prime event in 56 seconds and whatever. One day very soon, you suspect. More likely, when there is a semblance of opposition clipping near his quicksilver heels.
James Wilby, his GB teammate, was second but seemingly an ocean adrift. Peaty turned in 26.65 but ignited what he lovingly refers to as his afterburners. An aquatic patch of scorched earth was left behind as muscular shoulders and super-human legs propelled him towards one more slice of history. Yet he said: “It’s a weird one. Honestly, I wasn’t going out to do a world record.”
Casual as you like. And it makes one wonder what a fully motivated, fully honed, fully emoted Peaty might accomplish at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. He had marked himself as a mere eight-out-of-ten coming in. The Europeans, where he first claimed a world record, holds a special place in his heart. This was his 10th continental title. Validation for a hard summer’s work.
However, Japan is his rising sun and his moon. This is merely a fuelling stop on his rocket-propelled trip there. Better, he mischievously said grinning, to have been denied that miniscule moment faster, “because that gives me another level of motivation”.
“If I’d got 56.99, I’d have been “oh, for God’s sake.’ I’d have achieved it and people would all have been talking about Project 55. It’s a great place to be. Break the world record by a marginal gain.
Adam Peaty enters the pool on his way winning the men’s 100m Breaststroke final in a new world record time.
Photograph: Patrick B. Kraemer/EPA
“Two years out, it leaves me and Great Britain in a great place. You see Wilby down that last 50 and you’re looking at a very strong 100 breast. That’s the most important thing, that we can take on the world in the breaststroke. And if we can take that into the relay, even better. Who knows what can happen?”
He still has the 50m breaststroke to come here. Perhaps another chunk off another of his global bests. And then some more. “Hopefully, I’ve still got another 10 years left in the sport,” he said. Chastened, usefully, with the rupture of a four-year streak of victories at April’s Commonwealth Games, the fires are burning ominously.
“When you go four years without losing, you get complacent. Even if you don’t want to admit it to yourself. That team around you tries to keep you on track. There are a few ups and downs. But it’s great to have that close-knit family. It’s not just my performance. It’s my team’s and that spider web of support.”
For Wilby, it was the second time he had followed Peaty home in one of these journeys into the record books. Silver was no bad consolation in this company. “It’s good to see a teammate do well,” he said. “We’re both based in Loughborough on a daily basis and it’s good to see him putting in good performances. Seeing him do that does motivate me but individually we’ve all got our own targets.”
There was bronze for the British squad of Stephen Milne, Craig McLean, Kat Greenslade and Freya Anderson in the new 4x200 mixed freestyle relay. James Guy took second place in his 200m butterfly semi-final to advance into Sunday’s final while the Commonwealth champion, Duncan Scott, was the fifth-quickest in the 100m freestyle semis.
Siobhan-Marie O’Connor will vie for a medal in the unfamiliar surroundings of the women’s 100m breaststroke and Georgia Davies of Wales broke the European 50m backstroke record in the morning heats with a swim of 27.21sec but eased leisurely into the final.
“I won’t underestimate my competition,” said Davies. “The field is really strong. The 50 is such a close race and one tiny mistake means you can lose everything.”
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