Adam Peaty was shocked by his defeat in Birmingham
(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)The last time Adam Peaty suffered defeat, he used it as the fire to shatter repeated world records and successfully defend his Olympic title in Tokyo.
After a seismic shock in the pool on Sunday night at the Commonwealth Games, in which he finished outside the medals, he already warned his sights were on an Olympic hat-trick in Paris in two years’ time.
It was his first loss in the 100metre breaststroke since 2014 and his first defeat of any kind since the last Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast. After that loss four years ago, he admitted his mind had been in the wrong place and his motivation lacking.
This time it was his body which let him down. Ten weeks after breaking his foot in a training accident in Tenerife, there was definite rustiness in his heat. By the semi-finals he was far more assured and, come the final, he pulled well clear in the opening 50m as is his custom.
But he faded badly in the dying moments of the second lap and was swamped by the chasing pack, with England teammate James Wilby taking a surprise gold medal.
“Paris is still the plan,” said Peaty moments after exiting the water. “The next two years are going to be huge. It’s back to the drawing board, back to training and we’ll see what happens.”
There was an unfamiliarity to it all for Peaty and the rest of the field. The former world champion Mark Foster had once said the only way Peaty would lose throughout the rest of his career was if he was injured, and so it proved.
“It took a broken foot to get it away from me,” he said of his lengthy winning streak. “But I chose to fight. I don’t really care about the stats and how long I’m undefeated. Of course, it’s a shock. Of course, it’s disappointing but that’s where you have those moments to go faster next time.”
The winning time of 59.25seconds was two-and-a-half seconds off his world record, and he was at a loss to explain quite why he had struggled in the dying moments of the race, watched from the stands by his girlfriend Eiri and son George.
“I felt really good to 50 [metres],” he said. “I just don’t know what went wrong. With 25 to go I had nothing left in the tank. Sometimes you just have a bad race. I couldn’t pinpoint where it went wrong. I felt good but it’s two seconds slower than the Olympics. There’s something obviously gone majorly wrong in that cycle.
“Going into the next two years it’s: ‘How do I peak in Paris’. There’s obviously a lot going wrong in my training programme. It is what it is. Sometimes when you don’t race all season, it bites you when it matters. It’s the lack of training, the lack of racing. It is what it is, I can’t overthink it.”
This was only Peaty’s sixth race of the season at a time when normally he would have expected to compete 20 to 25 times, and the rustiness showed. Plus. it was only days out from Birmingham 2022 that he was first able to dive into the pool as he waited for his damaged foot to repair.
After becoming one of the few men in history to upstage Peaty, Wilby predicted his England teammate would hit back in style following his major upset.
“I’ve always chased him,” said Wilby, who trains in the same Loughborough pool as Peaty but in a different group. “He’s a phenomenal athlete. He’s the fastest breaststroker in the world. He’ll probably kick me in the arse later in the calendar. But I’m overwhelmed and amazed by the result.”
