At the very end there were just two-hundredths of a second between Adam Peaty and the third gold medal he has been chasing these last 14 months, which is nothing at all, but more than enough. The margin was so small that when he touched the wall he thought he had won. And he actually had beaten the swimmer he thought he was racing against, his great Chinese rival Qin Haiyang, who was in the lane next to him. The problem was that once he had, while 25m out, he found himself all of a sudden in another contest against the USA’s Nic Fink and Italy’s Nicolò Martinenghi, who was way off to one side in lane seven.
Martinenghi beat him. Just. It was the first time anyone had in a solo Olympic competition, and Peaty took it with good grace. As soon as the results were up on the big screen, he made his way over to lane seven and wrapped Martinenghi up in a hug. “Enjoy it,” he told him. Peaty knows just how important it is to make the most of the good times in this sport.
