Adam Peaty

Adam George Peaty (born 28 December 1994) is an English competitive swimmer who specialises in the sprint breaststroke events. He won the gold medal in the 100 metre breaststroke at the 2016 Summer Olympics, the first by a male British swimmer in 24 years, and retained the title at the 2020 Summer Olympics in 2021, the first British swimmer ever to retain an Olympic title.

He is also an eight-time World Champion, a sixteen-time European Champion and a four-time Commonwealth Champion. Between the years 2014 and 2020, Peaty achieved complete dominance in the 100 metre breaststroke in long-course major championships, and almost complete dominance of the 50 metre breaststroke, with only Cameron van der Burgh. of South Africa's victories in the Commonwealth Games of 2014 and 2018 interrupting his reign. According to FINA itself, Peaty is widely regarded as the dominant breaststroke swimmer of his era, and the most dominant sprint breaststroke swimmer of all time.

Peaty is the holder of the world record in 50 metre and 100 metre breaststroke events. He has broken 14 world records, becoming the first man to swim under 26 seconds for the 50 metre breaststroke and the first to swim the 100 metre breaststroke under both 58 and 57 seconds. He is the first swimmer ever to win both sprint breaststroke events at the same World championships, and the most successful British swimmer in a single World Championships.

Peaty is one of only six British swimmers, with David Wilkie, Rebecca Adlington, James Guy, Duncan Scott, and Tom Dean to have won gold medals at all four major international events (Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth Games), and with David Wilkie the only swimmers to hold all four major gold medals in the same single event at the same time, a feat he completed in winning the 100 metre breaststroke at the 2016 Olympics, and which he uniquely maintained through the 2020 Olympics. Peaty is a six-time European swimmer of the year which he has won consecutively from 2014 to 2019, and also a two-time World swimmer of the year in 2015 and 2018.

Early life

Adam George Peaty was born on 28 December 1994 in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, to Mark and Caroline Peaty, the youngest of four children. He attended St Josephs Catholic Primary School in Uttoxeter, Painsley Catholic College in Cheadle and Derby College. As a young boy, he developed an acute fear of water and was averse to being put in the bath after his brothers told him that sharks may come up through the plughole. At four years of age Peaty and his friend both went on their first swimming lesson together. It was at this swimming lesson where he lost the fear.

Peaty first joined Dove Valley Swimming Club in Uttoxeter when he was nine, and started to win races and setting club records by the time he was twelve. When he was 14, a friend took Peaty to join City of Derby Swimming Club, but the coach at the club, former Olympic swimmer Melanie Marshall, was not impressed by Peaty's performance in the freestyle and put him in the slow lane with younger girls. However, she noticed "something special" the first time she saw him swim breaststroke.

She also recognised the advantages of his large hands, big feet, "extraordinary cardiovascular system", and hyper-mobile, double-jointed knees and ankles. According to Peaty, he did not take swimming seriously until he was 17 – he was preparing for a night out drinking with friends when he read that Craig Benson, whom he knew well from the junior circuit, made the semi-final of the 100m breaststroke at the 2012 London Olympics. This prompted him to reassess his priorities, and spurred him on to commit fully to swimming and train full-time.

Career

Peaty started training at the City of Derby swimming club in 2007, where he was coached by Melanie Marshall. He also trained up to eight times per week at Repton School, a co-educational boarding independent school in the village of Repton in Derbyshire, and two sessions at Loughborough University. He started to train full-time at Loughborough University in 2017. Peaty's first senior event was the 2013 European Short Course Swimming Championships where he achieved three personal best times in the three breaststroke events.

2014

At the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, Peaty entered four events: the 50 metre breaststroke, the 100 metre breaststroke, the 200 metre breaststroke, and the 4 × 100 metre medley relay. In the 50 metre breaststroke, Peaty qualified fastest out of the heats, setting a new Commonwealth Games record, before winning his semi-final to qualify second fastest for the final. He eventually finished second in the final with a time of 26.78", 0.02 seconds behind South African Cameron van der Burgh. In the 100 metre breaststroke, Peaty set new Commonwealth Games records in the heats, semi-finals and the final, posting a time of 58.94" to win the gold, 0.34 seconds faster than van der Burgh, who finished second. Olympic champion and world record holder van der Burgh was the favourite to win, but Peaty managed a record time for a British man in the event. In the 200 metre breaststroke, Peaty finished in fourth place, 0.15 seconds off a medal position and 2.72 seconds behind first-placed Scotsman Ross Murdoch. Peaty also won gold in the 4 x 100 metre medley relay with his team of Chris Walker-Hebborn, Adam Barrett and Adam Brown

At the 2014 European Championships, Peaty set his first ever world record. After winning his heat of the 50 metre breaststroke, he then clocked a new world-record time of 26.62" in the semi-final. He then went on to win gold in the final. He also set a second world record as part of the final of the 4 × 100 metre mixed medley relay, along with Walker-Hebborn, Jemma Lowe and Fran Halsall, with a time of 3':44.02". He also won the gold in the 100 metre breaststroke after winning all 3 of his races and the gold in the 4 x 100 metre medley relay along with Walker-Hebborn, Barrett and Ben Proud, ending the championships having won gold in 4 out of the 5 events he entered after not qualifying for the final of the 200 metre breaststroke. In the 2014 World Short Course Championships, he rounded off his year with three silver medals in 50 metre breaststroke, 100 metre breaststroke and the 4 x 50 metre mixed medley relay, but again didn't qualify for the final of the 200 metre breaststroke.

2015

In 2015, Peaty's rise continued, breaking the world record for 100 metre breaststroke at the British Championships and World Trials by almost half a second. His time of 57.92 seconds made him the first man to go under 58 seconds for the event. He qualified for all three breaststroke events at the 2015 World Aquatic Championships. At the 2015 World Championships, he became a World Champion for the first time.

He won gold in the 100 metre breaststroke after winning both his heat and semi-final in new championship records before beating Cameron van der Burgh in the final, with his British team-mate Ross Murdoch winning the bronze medal. In the 50 metre breaststroke, van der Burgh broke the world record in the heats, Peaty then broke it once more in the semi-finals with a time of 26.42 seconds. Peaty then won the final of the event, which his second gold of the championship with van der Burgh taking silver. Peaty added a third gold with a win in the 4 × 100 metre mixed medley relay with a new world-record time along with Walker-Hebborn, Siobhan-Marie O'Connor and Halsall. His team of Walker-Hebborn, James Guy and Proud finished fourth in the 4 x 100 metre medley relay just missing out on a medal and he did not qualify out of the heats in his weakest event, the 200 metre breaststroke. Peaty rounded off his year by winning two silver medals at the 2015 European Short Course Swimming Championships in the 50 metre breaststroke and 100 metre breaststroke events.

2016

At the 2016 European Championships held in London, Peaty retained both of his individual titles in the 50 metre breaststroke and the 100 metre breaststroke, comfortably winning all of his heat, semi final and final swims and sharing the podium with his teammate Ross Murdoch on both occasions. He also retained both of his relay titles winning the 4 × 100 metre medley relay with Walker-Hebborn, Guy and Duncan Scott, and the mixed 4 × 100 metre medley relay with Walker-Hebborn, O'Connor and Halsall. He did not enter the 200 metre breaststroke event and as of the Olympics held in 2021 had never entered the event again at a major championship.

Peaty only competed in the 100 metre breaststroke in the individual events as 50 metre breaststroke was not an Olympic swimming event at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. In the heats, Peaty broke his own world record with a time of 57.55 seconds. He then won his semi-final and went on to win the final, breaking the new world record that he himself had set in the heats, and winning Team GB's first gold medal of the 2016 Olympics on 7 August 2016, winning with a time of 57.13 seconds. He won a further silver medal in the 4 × 100 metre medley relay with Walker-Hebborn, Guy and Scott.