Matt Richards has set his sights on spearheading Britain’s swimmers to a first gold in Paris.
Richards, Duncan Scott, Tom Dean and James Guy will bid to defend the Olympic title they won in Tokyo three years ago.
They showed it was no fluke by being crowned world champions in the event last year and, although they were outside the medals at this year’s Worlds, Richards was the only member of the first-choice quartet in action.
Richards, like Adam Peaty, missed out on an individual gold in the individual event over 200m by just two hundredths of a second to David Popovici on Monday while teammate Duncan Scott was agonisingly denied a medal by a few hundredths of a second.
But Richards insisted that missed opportunity had only inspired him further to go for gold.
“It’s something that I’ve dreamt of since I was a little boy,” said the 21-year-old Welshman in the aftermath of his first Olympic medal. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t dreaming of being one step higher on the podium. But my week’s not done, it’s made me hungrier than ever.
“Myself and Duncan, second and fourth, gutted for him by the way just missing out on the medal, he deserves it more than anyone but that bodes well for our 4x200m. If fuels me on for the rest of this week. If anything, it has added more fire to my belly. I’ve got a lot more to come this week.”
There was agony for Scott, who was just fractions outside a medal in the same race which would have matched Sir Chris Hoy’s record of seven Olympic medals for Team GB.
As well as Hoy’s medal record the British team, Scott is also bidding for a first individual Olympic title at the age of 27 and has another shot later in the Games in the 200m individual medley.
After finishing fourth last night, he said: “I don’t really know what to say. Fourth is a horrible place to come. Several hundredths of a second away from winning a medal, or even better.
“I was buzzing going into that and had really good fun in there. Looking back, I maybe should have pushed it on a bit earlier. It was really tight and came down to the finish but I didn’t quite have it today.”
For Richards, with a newly done tattoo of the Olympic rings on his right hand, his build-up has been in stark contrast to Tokyo where he won as a teenager.
In the Covid lockdown, his parents bought a pop-up pool for the family garden and he effectively attached a bungee cord to a garage door to enable him to do intensity training when pools were shut down.
He looks destined to be the superstar of Team GB’s swimming set-up in the future and does not lack for confidence, saying he wanted to be, “one of the greatest or the greatest”.
He suggested the British team might be cursed by two hundredths of a second having lost by the same fingertip finish to Peaty.
“I can’t be too disappointed with that,” he said. “It’s my first ever individual medal at an Olympic Games so to walk away from that with a silver medal is fantastic.
“Obviously, two hundredths off gold is excruciatingly frustrating. It felt as if I had touched the wall first. I thought I’d got it but you know it wasn’t my best finish. I’d be lying if I said it was fantastic. It didn’t feel bad. It did feel like I’d done enough but the time says differently.
“But it’s not a sport where it’s up for debate. It is black and white so we’ll move on, we’ll go better and see what we can do next time.”
