And in Sunday’s final, Peaty went even quicker.
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He was already looking forward to making improvements on the peerless performance when he returns to training at Repton School and Loughborough University after a well-earned break.
Carlin said: “I can’t believe it”. Then, in the Semi-Final, he didn’t quite meet the World Record but he did come out of the Semi-Final in overall first putting him in a very good position heading to the final. She’s been there and done it all.
“And I speak to Becky quite a lot”.
“I know those guys can probably step up as well so it’s going to be a great final”. I’m going to push forwards.
“It was 12 years ago and if I look back now, I’d say that was my defining moment as a coach”.
For Peaty, his sights are now set on Friday’s 4x100m medley relay and potentially another gold medal for Team GB.
Peaty now plans to move out of the family home he shares with mum Caroline and dad Mark, who were in Rio to watch him alongside his girlfriend Anna Zair, a 19-year-old Loughborough University psychology student. Brazilian Felipe Franca raised a big roar from the home crowd by qualifying third, a further tenth of a second behind.
A surprise star of Peaty’s story has been his adoring grandmother, Mavis Williams, who roared him on from her home in Sheffield before tweeting her congratulations to the victor and his coach.
The hashtag #OlympicNan has been doing the rounds on Twitter, with her number of followers topping 5,000 and climbing.
Adam Peaty’s lifeguard, Deborah Hood-Leverett, leans over the reception counter of his local swimming pool and proudly shows off her iPhone: her background is a beaming selfie with the Olympic champion taken just a week before he flew to Rio.
And he said of his proudest fan: “She’s a great nan and she’s always loved swimming”.
“I’m ready for Rio now thanks to my kind window cleaner who put my bunting up”, she tweeted. I find it amusing they’re competing for that, but that’s the kind of family we are. “It just sounds like Jaykae and all his mates singing about their lives”, he explained to The Guardian, “but in the call room [before the race] it will nearly feel like I’ve got them behind me”. If we’re not doing that I don’t really see the point.
Peaty was also ending the Great Britain team’s wait for a medal at the Games, and another arrived just a couple of minutes later when Jazz Carlin claimed silver behind the wonderful Katie Ledecky of the United States of America in the women’s 400m freestyle.
While the pool stars may have lifted spirits in the Olympic Village, Team GB have been tipped to win just 16 gold medals, a sharp drop on 2012, when they took 29.
It was a disappointing day for the Britons in the evening’s finals.
In addition to all of his accolades, Peaty now owns the 7 fastest swims in history.
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Peaty had broken his own world record in the heats on Saturday and repeated the feat, leading throughout and pulling away over the final 50m to win by a huge margin considering the race distance and easily outpace his Saturday time of 57.55. “I was just trying to control my heat and get a good lane for tonight”. “It’s given me a new interest and kept my brain working”.
