Adam Peaty beaten as James Wilby wins gold in huge Commonwealth Games shock
Adam Peaty admitted he must work to rediscover his spark after seeing his era of invincibility in the 100 metre breaststroke end in stunning fashion at Birmingham 2022.
Peaty, the two-time Commonwealth and Olympic champion, was beaten over the distance for the first time in more than eight years as he could only manage fourth in last night’s final at the Sandwell Aquatics Centre.
It was the 27-year-old's first defeat over any distance since April 2018, comfortably ranking as one of the biggest shocks in the history of swimming.
The title did at least remain in England, with Peaty’s team-mate James Wilby taking gold and Australian duo Zac Stubblety-Cook silver and Sam Williamson the silver and bronze.
But the post-race focus all fell on Peaty. The Staffordshire ace’s preparations for the Games had been significantly hampered by a broken foot, suffered at the start of May, which forced him to miss the world championships.
Yet he remained the strong favourite for gold, clocking the fastest qualifying time of 59.02 seconds in Saturday's semi-final.
Tellingly, his time in the final was nearly eight-tenths slower, Peaty appearing to tire badly midway through the second length as he was overtaken by his rivals.
He said: “I felt really good to 50 metres. I don’t know what went wrong, with 25 to go I had nothing in the tank. Maybe it is the overexposure of my foot, trying to accumulate training on the bike?
“My legs felt good. Sometimes you just have a bad race. I could not pinpoint where I went wrong and I felt good. But that is two seconds slower than the Olympics. Obviously something has majorly gone wrong in that cycle.
“I think I need a full reset now. I definitely need that. I have always had a focus and always worked to something.
“Obviously the Euros is probably out of the question. I don’t see the point in doing something I am not going to be very good at.”
Peaty, who was due back in the pool this morning for the heats of the 50m breaststroke, continued: “Going into the next few years is all about peaking for Paris 2024. There is a lot stuff going wrong in my training programme, where I am pushing and not pushing.
“You can't overthink it now. I felt good in the warm-up, I felt good yesterday and thought I would go faster than yesterday. But sometimes when you haven’t raced a lot, it isn’t there when it matters.
“I don’t care about the stats. I don’t care about how long I was undefeated. I chose to fight. I have lost that spark, whether it was the thing with my foot. I will be looking how I find it over the next few weeks going into the next few months and years.
“Of course it was a shock. Of course I am disappointed. But maybe you need these moments to go even faster next time.”
On a positive end to the night for Midlands swimmers, former Ellesmere College student Freya Anderson won her third medal of the Games with bronze in the women’s 4x200m relay. The 21-year-old had already claimed silver medals in the 4x100m mixed and women’s relays.
