What Is Adam Peaty’s Top Speed in Breaststroke?

British breaststroker, Olympic gold medalist, and World Record holder Adam Peaty is the best men’s 100 breaststroker who has ever lived. By a totality of relevant measures, including dominance over his peer group, that is true.

Late last year, he announced plans for his ‘Project Immortal,’ which is his effort to lock that title up forever.

This has raised lots of questions about what time would be immortal, untouchable,  So far, most of that conversation has revolved around strong opinions, educated guesses, and hopeful wishes. But Peaty lit up the swimosphere this week by posting videos of his training in the pool-treadmill at Top Training Tenerife in Spain.

There, he reached a top burst speed of 2.15 meters/second. Calculating that out would come to about a 46.51 over 100 meters. If we account for turn speed (which we can actually do, thanks to Steffano Nurra’s analysis here), where Peaty is about 6% faster than he is over-water, that saves him maybe another three-tenths of a second (though his current speed on the turn is actually slower than his 2.15 meters/second top speed).

Of course, nobody can maintain this kind of a chaotic top speed for a full 100 meters, but think of this as swimming’s 40 yard dash: what is the absolute maximum speed attainable by one of the world’s best?

Peaty maintains the speed for about 6 strokes. In his 2016 World Record swim, he took 46 strokes.

In his 2019 World Record swim (56.88), Peaty’s fastest 5 meters above the water were into the turn. There, he had an average speed of 1.79 meters/second.

So what is Peaty’s theoretical maximum speed? Somewhere between 46 and 56 seconds, it seems. Now he and his coach Mel Marshall have to ask a crucial question: is the best way to improve his time over 100 meters to improve his top-end 6-stroke burst-speed, to improve his ability to maintain his 1.79 meters/second current top speed in the 100 for longer, or some combination of the two, to improve his World Record.

Regardless of which they choose, the continued evolution of data collection in swimming is clearly an unmissable tool for modern uber-elites like Peaty, where the improvements come by the milliseconds and where every single wrinkle and wiggle of the stroke is meaningful.

Peaty, as such an outlier in the sport’s most-technical stroke, might have the most-analyzed stroke in history.

Here’s the above-water video:

Somewhere around 2.15m/s. Another big week ahead! ⚡️ pic.twitter.com/g6XCXI1sYh

— Adam Peaty OBE (@adam_peaty) May 8, 2022

Here’s a below-water view:

Underwater video of Adam Peaty swimming breaststroke at full speed 🏊‍♂️💨 pic.twitter.com/ATI27zMHTa

— Kyle Sockwell (@kylesockwell) May 8, 2022