There won’t be any seaweed to worry about in the Olympic pool in Rio, where Adam Peaty is the best hope for gold in a talented British swimming team.
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And how spectacularly did the dam finally burst, courtesy of another of those buccaneering displays the bullish Peaty now specialises in.
Fastest off the blocks, Peaty made the turn 0.08 of a second inside world record pace and powered down the final 50 like a man determined to exceed the expectations that have built since he won three golds at last year’s world championships.
Talk about rising to the occasion. 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.
“I put my arm around his shoulder and said “You’re a world champion”. But now I’ve achieved it, it’s an absolute honour. I’m definitely the strongest I’ve ever been.
While Peaty basked in his gold medal glory in Rio, back in the United Kingdom his 74-year-old grandmother stayed up late to watch him on television.
Team GB swimmer Adam Peaty shows off his power and strength with an impressive push-up show. The world number one, who won bronze four years ago while representing Albania, finally got the chance to represent her homeland in Rio after the International Olympic Committee formally recognised the disputed region. The 30-year-old is also the oldest female diving medallist. It is testament to his hard work that we are here. “That’s how scared I was”. In the sport’s debut in the Olympics, the medals will be decided on Monday [8 August], with Australia and Canada making up the other last four clash. Van der Burgh seemed astonished at how fast his time was, too, happy to have been pulled along in Peaty’s magnificent undertow.
“Nothing means more to me than racing for my country, racing for the Queen, the Royal family and racing for the people back home who support me”.
“You don’t go out as much as you do when you were younger, now do you?” she told The Associated Press on Sunday.
Gold medallist Van der Breggen said of her compatriot: “I was really shocked when I saw the crash and it didn’t look good but I had to focus and keep on with the race”.
No-one will be more delighted than his 74-year-old grandmother, Mavis Williams, who has been entertaining the Twittersphere in her new role as #OlympicNan.
“I knew it would be a tough race and obviously Katie raced for the world record and I was just trying to stick to her and have a great race”.
Cheering him on from the poolside were his mother and father, Caroline and Mark Peaty, and girlfriend Anna Zair. She has now acquired over 5,000 followers and some of her tweets have been liked over 2,000 times.
Jazz Carlin smashed her personal best on the way to claiming a 400m freestyle silver medal in her debut Olympics.
The final 50m of Peaty’s world record swim blew his rivals away. Later in the evening there was also another gold for the uniquely prolific Michael Phelps as the USA won the men’s 100m relay. In his three races in Brazil, he has swam the three quickest 100-metre breaststrokes in history.
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She also changed her Twitter profile description to read: “Proud Nan to a World Champion Breaststroker”.
