SWIMMING HEROES #2
Second in our series on the athletes that inspire our swimmers is someone who needs no introduction, he has won everything the sport has to offer and is a double Olympic Champion!

Adam Peaty
Born: 28th December 1994
Double Olympic Champion Nationality: British
Height: 1.91 m Education: Derby College
Current team: Great Britain

Biography;
Adam Peaty was born in 1994 in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire and is one of four children. He is a student of Derby College. He had an acute fear of water as a really young boy and it wasn't until he started swimming lessons at the age of four that he began to overcome his fear. This proved a wise decision as up to now he has won gold medals in the European, Commonwealth, World and Olympic and is a breastroke specialist.
Did you know? Adam Peaty has double jointed knees and ankles!

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. 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 2016 he was selected for the Olympic GB Swimming Squad, where he 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.

At the 2021 British Swimming Olympic trials Peaty won the 100m breaststroke title on the opening day of the championships at the London Aquatics Centre in a time of 57.39 seconds. In May 2021, he won his fourth successive gold medals in both the 100m breaststroke and the 50m breaststroke at the European Championships. He also won two further golds as part of the team in the mixed 4 × 100 metre medley and men's 4 x 100 m medley relays.
In July 2021, Peaty became the first British swimmer to defend an Olympic title. He won Britain's first gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games (held in 2021), beating Arno Kamminga of the Netherlands in the 100m breaststroke with a time of 57.37 seconds. He won a second gold in the mixed 4 × 100 metre medley relay, setting a world record time of 3 minutes 37.58 seconds together with Kathleen Dawson, James Guy and Anna Hopkin.

For the 21st century through the end of 2021, Peaty had set a total of 11 individual world records in short course and long course meters, ranking as number five behind Michael Phelps, Aaron Peirsol, Ryan Lochte, and Cameron van der Burgh in terms of total number of individual world records achieved by a male swimmer in the century.

Find out more about Adam Peaty on the British Swimming Website below;
https://www.britishswimming.org/athlete-swimming-profiles/british-swimming-profiles/adam-peaty/