Why Peaty is swimming’s ‘alpha male’

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Rio 2016 Olympics: Adam Peaty wins 100m breaststroke goldOlympic Games on the BBCHosts: Rio de Janeiro Dates: 5-21 August Rio time: BST -4Coverage: Watch on BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Four, Red Button and up to 24 HD video streams on mobile, desktop, connected TVs and app, plus follow on Radio 5 live and via live text commentary.

Close? He may as well have been swimming on his own.

Adam Peaty’s 100m breaststroke gold on Sunday night was one of the great displays in British Olympic history: a victory margin of more than a second and a half, domination in an event supposed to be decided by centimetres.

Even his celebration produced an iconic image to carry down the years as he roared his pleasure astride a red lane marker with arms thrust out wide and face raised to the rafters.

A first Olympic swimming gold for a British male since Adrian Moorhouse in 1988. A world record in his heat and another in the final. This is how 21-year-old Peaty has come from Uttoxeter to conquer the world.

Day-by-day guide to what’s onLatest medal tableStroke of genius

In Sunday’s final, Peaty led at 50 metres and pulled away down the second length to leave the rest of the field in his foaming wake. Even in swimming a time that no man has ever clocked before, never did he look rushed, never did he appear to tighten.

“It’s the smoothness of Peaty’s action that defines him,” says four-time Olympian Karen Pickering.

“The timing of his arms and legs is so good – the perfect stroke sees them working together, with the leg-kick driving the arms forward, not interfering with the last part of the pull.

“If you bring your legs up too soon you can feel the glide part of your stroke cut short, but you also don’t want your glide to be so long that you start to stall, that you start to slow down.

‘Adam’s technique is better than any of his rivals’,’ says Karen Pickering. ‘He can maintain his rhythm’

“Adam’s technique is better than any of his rivals’. Some of that comes with practice, some from drills. You have to work on it in the pool to optimise it. A coach can see it and help you, but you can also feel it as a swimmer.

“The great ones understand the sensations and understand when the timing is working.

“Then there is the rhythm of his stroke. He’s so quick. Quite a few of the 100m swimmers have that; the longer distance swimmers tend to glide for longer.

“But what Adam can do is maintain that rhythm, and maintain the damage it does. Some of his rivals will tie up in the last 30 or 40 metres, rhythm dropping off, while others will lose its effect. You can see them start to go up and down in the water a little more rather than firing all that momentum forwards.”

The alpha male

Peaty is a man who wears his passions openly. He said in the build-up to these Olympics that he does it for Queen and country. He also loves to listen to controversial Compton hip-hop heroes NWA.

That may make him the first Olympic champion to be inspired by both Elizabeth II and Eazy-E. But here in Rio he has …

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