For Adam Peaty 2017 proved to be yet another highly successful year of swimming where we saw him continue to drive both breaststroke and the sport swimming as a whole forward.
His dominance within men’s global breaststroke has increased as we saw him retain his individual World 50m and 100m breaststroke titles in Budapest at the FINA World Championships in July and he rounded the year off with the 100m SC breaststroke title in European record winning style.
2017 saw Peaty receive his MBE for services to swimming from the Duke of Cambridge at Buckingham Palace and a fourth consecutive BBC Sports Personality of the Year nomination as he continues to be recognised as one of Britain’s leading sportsmen.
Peaty has maintained his mantra of wanting to not just win but leave a legacy for all to enjoy and for all to be inspired to swim and follow their dreams. He now holds the top ten fastest ever times in Men’s LC 100m breaststroke.
“2017 has been an amazing year. Obviously, I got the double world record in the 50m breaststroke and retained my titles in the 100m and 50m at the World Championships.
“And now to top it all of I had a Sports Personality of the Year nomination again and my first European short course short title.
“I look forward to using what I’ve learnt in Denmark around my turns and dive and using that for the Commonwealth Games and Europeans in the summer next year.
“2018 is a European and Commonwealth Games year so I’m going to go to the Gold Coast and see what I’ve got.
“I’ll probably be on a ¾ taper so won’t be fully tapered but I’ll go there, enjoy the atmosphere and hopefully retain my titles and push on in the breaststroke a little bit more.
“And then Europeans I want to continue with that and end a year on a high. In my mind, I’ve got plenty of things planned and long course is my race so I want to increase that gap between myself and second place.”
You can see Adam in action at the Edinburgh International Meet incorporating the British Swimming Championships in March – get your tickets here