Adam Peaty qualified fastest for Sunday night’s Olympic 100m breaststroke final to set up a showdown with Chinese rival Haiyang Qin, after admitting that concerns over the sport’s doping controversy are “always in the back of your mind”.
Peaty, seeking to win a third successive gold medal in the event, won Saturday night’s opening semi-final in a time of 58.86, before watching Qin follow up with a 58.93 triumph in the second.
Qin was among a group of 23 Chinese swimmers - 11 of whom are in Paris - embroiled in a doping scandal in the run up to these Games, after it emerged they were allowed to compete at the last Olympics in Tokyo despite testing positive for a banned substance.
Chinese doping authorities launched their own investigation, concluding that the positive tests, which were not disclosed publicly at the time, were the result of kitchen contamination at their team hotel.
The World Anti-Doping Agency accepted that explanation, but their decision has led to huge backlash from rival nations, most notably the USA.
“It's always in the back of your mind as an athlete,” Peaty said, when asked about the controversial build-up to the Games following his victory in the heats earlier on Saturday. “You definitely want a fair game, you want to win fair and be around people who do the same and live by the same values.
“That's all I'll say on that, I think we all know what we're talking about. But at the same time, we've got a job to do so we can't let that be a cloud in front of the road.”
Peaty’s evening swim was an improvement of 0.32 seconds on his morning effort, but neither he nor Qin have yet threatened the kind of times they have been capable of in the past.
The Brit’s world record stands at almost two seconds quicker and while that was set fback in 2019, both he and Qin - the second-fastest man in history - have broken the 58-second barrier this year.
There have been suggestions that the relatively shallow depth of the pool at Paris’s La Defense Arena will mean fast times are hard to come by at these Games but Peaty says that will not matter come Sunday night’s final.
It’s about the racing and that’s what I love. That’s what goes through every vein in my body. Tomorrow, I’m just looking for a little bit of joy through that
“Times don’t mean anything here,” the 29-year-old said. “They do not mean a single thing here. It’s about who gets their hand on the wall. That is sport in its most beautiful form.
“It’s about the racing and that’s what I love. That’s what goes through every vein in my body. Tomorrow, I’m just looking for a little bit of joy through that.”
Meanwhile, the women’s 400m freestyle final delivered on its billing as one of the races of the Games, with four of the five fastest women in history lining up in the same field.
New Zealand’s world champion Erika Fairweather and Olympic great Katie Ledecky, chasing an eighth career gold, had taken the morning heats, but it was Tokyo gold medalist Ariarne Titmus and Canadian sensation Summer McIntosh who went stroke for stroke for much of the race.
Titmus, in the end, had too much for the 17-year-old over the final 150 metres, accelerating away to win in a time of 3:57.49 and drawing first blood for Australia in what is expected to be an epic battle with the US for pool supremacy, with Ledecky collecting her eleventh Olympic medal, and first ever bronze.
The Aussies also claimed gold in the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay, before the US hit back to take the men’s equivalent, with the British quartet of Tom Dean, Jacob Whittle, Duncan Scott and Matt Richards missing out on a medal in fifth.
Earlier, Germany’s Lukas Maertens had claimed the first gold medal of the meet as reward for a gutsy front-running display in the men’s 400m freestyle, while America’s Gretchen Walsh laid down a marker by setting a new Olympic record of 55.38 in the semi-finals of the women’s 100m butterfly.
