Adam Peaty wins British Swimming Championships gold in 100m breaststroke at Ponds Forge

In only his second meet since winning two more Olympic medals at Tokyo last year, 27-year-old Peaty was first in the men’s 100m breaststroke final with a time of 58.58 seconds.

That was under two seconds behind than his world record of 56.88 set at the 2019 World Championships.

He remains unbeaten in the pool since 2014.

Earlier, Annabelle Wilkinson of City of Sheffield Swim Squad (COSSS) won gold in the women’s junior 400m individual medley.

Fourteen-year-old Phoebe Cooper, also of COSSS, was first in the women’s Priority Paris 400m individual medley.

The British Championships are taking place at Ponds Forge until Saturday, with Peaty, who appeared on Strictly Come Dancing after his Tokyo heroics, also set to race in the 50m and 200m breaststroke on Wednesday and Friday respectively.

He will be joined in Sheffield by fellow individual Olympic medallists Luke Greenbank and Duncan Scott plus Tokyo relay medallists Anna Hopkin, James Guy, Calum Jarvis, Matt Richards, Kathleen Dawson, Freya Anderson and James Wilby.

This week’s event doubles up as selection trials ahead of a busy summer of World Championships, Commonwealth Games and European Championships, with around 1,500 swimmers set to participate.

Loughborough-based Peaty has already secured spots for each of those competitions – in Budapest, Birmingham and Rome respectively – by virtue of prior championship performances.

The championships are the first British nationals to be held since 2019 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Ponds Forge first hosted the event in 1992 and most recently staged the 2017 competition.