Peaty Swims a Historic 56.59 Breaststroke Split

Going into the men’s 4 x 100 medley relay it was easy to predict that Great Britain’s Adam Peaty would be have the fastest breaststroke split in the field, but the way he dominated that leg of the relay was phenomenal. When Peaty dove in the British team was 1.83 seconds behind the Americans at the end of 100 meters he touched 61 one-hundredths of a second ahead of Cody Miller.

The 21 year old Brit, who holds the world record in the 100 breaststroke, split a 56.59. That time is exactly two seconds faster than Brazilian Joao Gomes who was the next fastest swimmer in the race. Peaty put up the fastest breaststroke split in history in the prelims posting a time of 57.49 beating his own best of 57.74, which he put up in Kazan, but was still 36 one-hundredths of a second slower than his world record.

James Guy took over from Peaty and was passed by Michael Phelps. Duncan Scott had a tremendous swim as well recording a freestyle split of 47.62 holding off a fast charging Kyle Chalmers of Australia. Although each member of the British 4 x 100 medley relay had a strong swim the team took silver thanks to the incredible performance of Peaty.

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Ed P
8 years ago

Amazing swim, that’s so fast it’s hard to wrap my head around it

Track
8 years ago

I would really love to see him try the 200 again in 2017, he went 2:08 in 2015 not training for the event at all, He has really cleaned up his starts, turn and pullout, which will help him. If he goes for it imagine 2017 if he keeps his progress up, I could see
50: 26.0
100: 56.4
200: 2:06.1
Scary stuff, wonder if he will go for the Short course records in december

gfeee
8 years ago

So does the split count as a new world record? I’ve found nothing to suggest it does. If not, why?

Admin
Reply to  gfeee
8 years ago

gfeee – records can only be set on relay splits when they’re on a leadoff, because a relay start is half-a-second to a second faster than a flat start, depending on who you ask.

scott
8 years ago

As a former breastroker, albeit a bad one, I cannot believe how fast his turnover is. Lily King also has an extremely fast turnover for a breastroker. Granted these are 100 swimmers. I think, at least for now, in the 200 longer is better.

weirdo
8 years ago

The.best.split.by.anyone.in.any.relay.in.Rio. NO QUESTION!

Eddie Rowe
8 years ago

20 years ago in Atlanta Jeremy Linn had the fastest split in history at 60.3. Amazing how far we’ve come.

Becky D
Reply to  Eddie Rowe
8 years ago

Well, if you keep changing the rules (e.g. allow dolphin kick on each wall), times are bound to change.

weirdo
Reply to  Becky D
8 years ago

I don’t think the dolphin kick helps Adam much. The ONLY thing pedastrian about his race are his underwaters.

Becky D
Reply to  weirdo
8 years ago

Or letting your hands break the surface. Legal breaststroke is simply not the same as 20 years ago.

Steve Nolan
8 years ago

How was his relay start? It was laughably bad yesterday in the warm-up pool – standing straight up, tiniest little foot step – but hey, if it works, I guess.

PsychoDad
8 years ago

Six years I have been preaching here on SwimSwam high turnover, stay high and look forward type of breaststroke and have been constantly dismissed here by stay low, glide until you lose, crowd who followed wrong teachings of Dave Salo. Peaty and King proved them wrong, as well as Josh Prenot to some extend. America is waking up and we can expect better breaststroke from here from now on.

Sccoach
Reply to  PsychoDad
8 years ago

The basic general consensus I hear at coaches clinics is high tempo in 100 long glide in 200..

I’m all about letting kids do what’s comfortable for them in breast, everyone is different. And then making small tweaks once they develop their natural comfortable breast technique

ChestRockwell
Reply to  Sccoach
8 years ago

Don’t. He’s one of the worst trolls on the site. He’s been thankfully quiet lately. Just let him go back to whatever bridge he lives under.

About Jeff Grace

Jeff Grace

Jeff is a 500 hour registered yoga teacher who holds diplomas in Coaching (Douglas College) and High Performance Coaching (National Coaching Institute - Calgary). He has a background of over 20 years in the coaching profession, where he has used a unique and proven teaching methodology to help many achieve their …

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