Adam Peaty is ready for whatever the chasing pack can bring when the world championships start in Russia on Sunday. Having set two world records in the past year, there are hopes Peaty could become only the second Briton – and the first since fellow breaststroker David Wilkie 40 years ago – to win gold in two individual events at a single world championships.
The 20-year-old is part of a 29-strong Great Britain squad in Kazan who feature a number of medal contenders, two years after they won a solitary bronze courtesy of Fran Halsall in the 50m freestyle at the last world championships in Barcelona. It is the City of Derby swimmer, however, who creates the greatest anticipation after his achievements over the past 12 months.
Peaty won two golds and a silver at the 2014 Commonwealth Games before securing four titles at the European Championships, setting a 50m breaststroke world record of 26.62sec along the way. Then at the world trials at the Aquatics Centre in the Olympic Park this year his performance over 100m sent tremors through the swimming world. When he stopped the clock at 57.92sec, Peaty became the first man to swim two lengths in under 58 seconds. He had sliced more than half a second – 0.54sec – off the world record set by Cameron van der Burgh in the same lane en route to the 2012 Olympic title.
No other swimmer has even dipped under 59sec in 2015, Ross Murdoch’s Scottish record of 59.13 behind Peaty that night the next fastest.
“When you take the world record a lot of people are going to go out there to get you really,” Peaty says. “I kind of enjoy that, I like being chased. I enjoyed chasing last year but I’ve adapted to that now. I’ve made sure I am working hard enough to get that lead and keep it there.”
Coached by the former world, European and Commonwealth medallist Mel Marshall, Peaty is bound for his first world championships – in a temporary pool on the pitch at the Kazan Arena, home of sometimes Champions League side Rubin Kazan.
The British head coach, Bill Furniss, says Peaty will have to contend with being a target. “The challenge for Adam now is that he is going to go to the world championships and he is going to have to handle great expectation; he knows that everybody will be gunning for him,” Furniss says. “I’m confident he will handle it but it is a challenge.”
Peaty narrowly missed out on the British team two years ago – instead competing at the National Youth Championships in Sheffield.
He dismisses the step up but acknowledges his records will count for little. “I don’t really see it as a big competition: I see it as just another race. I am just going to enjoy it and see what we’ve got but I had two good meets last year, so hopefully this will be another.
“Just because I have two world records everyone assumes that means automatically it is two guaranteed gold medals but it isn’t like that and anything can happen in a race.”
There has been international recognition for Peaty’s exploits, even if he has not reached such a wide audience at home. At a British training camp in Vichy, central France, he was mobbed by primary schoolchildren all wanting an autograph and a picture.
“France is quite big on its swimming; they must have been, you wouldn’t go to our primary schools and see that!” he recalls. “They were shouting out my name. I was kind of wondering how they knew it but I guess two world records kind of clicked on there.
“It is great to see kids doing that really. It would be nice if people could do that in England. It’s good for kids to look up to sporting role models.”
Days later in June at the Mare Nostrum competition in Barcelona he was the star attraction again; obliging every media outlet, signing every autograph.
“Kids are always going to be around people who break world records and that. It’s how you deal with that. I never let it get in the way of my race but I am always more than happy after the race to sign autographs and have photos.”
Looking on in Barcelona was Van der Burgh, who inspired Peaty with his 2012 Olympic victory. The South African has won seven world medals since his 2007 debut but he is still seeking his first gold in the 100m. Of the attention now directed at Peaty, he says: “It affects different people in different ways. Some people thrive on it, some people feel pressurised.
“It depends on your character and how you take it on. I am sure he has got good mentors and a lot of guys looking after him. Hats off to him: 57.9 is a great time.”
Despite that time, self-doubt still lurks inside Peaty. “It will probably always be there but I think that kind of keeps me settled in a good way. I still doubt myself now but that is the way it is, that’s the way it’s always been.
“I don’t really like to look ahead to the competition and say I can do this or do that but once I am behind those blocks and diving in then a button switches on and all the doubt goes and is replaced by confidence in all the hard work I’ve done.”
