Swimmer Adam Peaty hopes Olympic ban will serve as a deterrent

On a normal day Ledecky might have been the center of attention, but Peaty seized the limelight like a man on a mission. Peaty has been widely fancied to become Britain’s first male Olympic champion in swimming since Adrian Moorhouse in 1988.

“I went out pretty fast, quite easy, came back and I heard everyone cheering and I thought, what are they cheering for, there’s no Brazilians in this lane?”

“We’re not going to get too complacent now”, he said. “My first Olympic Games and I’m just excited to race”.

That was 0.37 seconds faster than the record he set a year ago, as he finished more than a second clear of everyone else in Saturday’s six heats.

He qualified first in 57.55 seconds Saturday afternoon (6 July) at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium, lowering his previous mark of 57.92 set in London on 17 April 2015.

South Korea’s Park Tae-hwan, the 2008 champion who won a late battle to swim at the Games after appealing against a doping ban, failed to qualify for the men’s 400 meters freestyle finals. After all, he’s the current European and world champion.