After positively declaring his support for the addition of the 50s of stroke to the Olympic program, World Record holder Adam Peaty has taken a somewhat unusual step in preparing for his potential 4th Olympic Games, by skipping the 2025 World Championships in Singapore and competing in his first Olympic distance triathlon.
Peaty, who won silver in the 100 breaststroke in Paris, was pre-qualified for Great Britain’s World Championships team, but opted not to compete instead focusing on his fitness, mental health and the switch to a coach, as he now is working with Jamie Main at Repton, since Mel Marshall took over the job at Griffith University in Australia at the start of the year. In Peaty’s absence, Max Morgan and Greg Butler took up the breaststroke duties for the Brits, but Peaty was not idly sitting on the coach watching, as he too was preparing for a different race.
This past weekend, Peaty competed in the London T100 Triathlon, where he finished 248th out of 1,625 participants in the Olympic Triathlon in a time of 2:34:37. The Olympic Distance consists of a 1.5-kilometer swim, 40-kilometer bike, and 10-kilometer run.
Peaty, who finished 45th out of 246 in the N30-34 age group, had the 5th fastest swim of all competitors, completing the wetsuit mandatory 1.5k in the Royal Docks in 19:44. Top Olympic-level triathletes tend to come out of the water in around 18 minutes (at the Paris Olympics last summer, no one broke 20 minutes in the swim due to a strong current).
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Peaty, who rarely has competed in the 200 breaststroke, doing so on occasion in short course meters, slipped back into the pack on the bike, posting the 304th fastest 40k with a split of 1:06:25 (22.45 mph/36.13 km/h). As evidenced by the video below of the finish, Peaty was dealing with some fatigue on the run, clocking the 886th fastest time with a 56:52 (9:09/mile, 5:41/km).
In the clip above, Peaty can be seen being congratulated by his fiancé, Holly Ramsay, whose father, the famed chef Gordon was also present and is no stranger to endurance races, having completed multiple marathons. On his own Instagram page, Peaty, who in addition to training for this race has been touring the United Kingdom for his AP Race Clinics, posted about not only what he took away from the race, but what he learned about himself.
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Peaty was competing a part of Team Ramsay, which was raising money as part of Gordon’s and his wife, Tana’s, foundation, which is a fund within the Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity.
Peaty is not the first Olympic swimming champion to try their hand at triathlons. One of the 1996 Olympic gold medalists in the Women’s 4×200 free relay, Sheila Taormina of the USA, transitioned to triathlons full time, finishing 6th in the event at the Sydney Olympics. Eight years later, she qualified for the Beijing Olympics in the modern pentathlon, becoming the first female athlete to make the Olympics in three different sports.
Winning the men’s T100 race in London the day prior was New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde, who completed an incredible comeback after being hit by a truck in Japan while cycling in May, which left him with a punctured lung, six broken ribs and a smashed up scapula. He won the 100km distance (2 km swim, 80 km bike, 18 km run) in a time of 3:17:37.
British star Lucy Charles-Barclay, who competed in the women’s 1500 free at the British Olympic Trials in 2021, won the women’s race in 3:35:51.
Just keeping his future father-in-law sweet! For Ramsey this is just more publicity. Next Ramsey will have Peaty peeling potatoes and making chips.
Celebrity cooking show? Hells Kitchen but it’s all retired Olympic athletes? They’re so competitive…that could actually be electric.
Impressive.
Participation in the Olympic Triathlon at the moment should ready him for events he will swim in 36 months, psychologically not physically.
Not sure how this translates into going a 26 low and 57 high breastroke.
Doesn’t have to. Unless you think he should stay in a locked room when not training for swimming in the next 3 years. Make sure there is no elephant in that room.
The locked room part killed me 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Oh Walter. You just dont get it.
Breaststroke.
It’s no surprise with his fitness he did well.
And people said he wouldn’t go any more best times! Not sure what the conditions were like but 19:44 with a bit of zigzagging is admirable
The T100 is not an Olympic distance race. The 100 is that the total adds up to 100 kilometers (2k swim, 80k bike, 18k run). Olympic distance is 1.5k swim, 40k bike and 10k run. And in the Olympics bike drafting is legal but not so in a T100 race.
If that’s really his distances – then there was likely some nice current to that river! 19:44 for a 2k open water would be super impressive otherwise.
I think T100 is also the name of the event and they had other distances too. Kind of like a local half marathon also offers the 5k and 10k distance
If you will read the article and maybe check what you are saying before posting, you will discover that the pros do the longer distance and the amateurs including Peaty did the shorter Olympic distance. Mr. Know it all you are not.
He did the Olympic distance at the T100 event. The article mentioned the format.
The article headline say “triathalon” but it’s actually triathlon.