When Britain had last won the 100m breastroke gold medal at the Olympics it was as tight as it could possibly have been, Adrian Moorhouse touching out his rivals by just one one-hundredth of a second having been behind for all but the last half metre of the race.

Come 2016 and the comparison could not have been more stark. Whereas Moorhouse had let his rivals go and run them down at the end for that finger tip touch, Adam Peaty was having none of it. He imposed himself on the Olympic final from the start and left his rivals in no doubt as to who was mounting the top step of the podium.

That of course assumes they still had any hope left of competing for anything other than silver. Peaty had set a world record of 57.55 in the heats and gone almost as quick again in the semi final, qualifying fastest for the final by a staggering 1.43 seconds.

The final wasn’t even as close as that. Peaty dominated the race from 25m and left his competitors for dead on the second 50m, touching in a new world record of 57.13 and winning by 1.56s, a seemingly impossible a margin for a 100m race.

Rio saw Peaty in the form of his life to that point. He went on from individual glory to help the medley relay team to silver with an astonishing split of 56.59, capping a fine week for Britain and one that cemented Peaty as the greatest 100m breaststroke swimmer of all time.

Banner image courtesy of DFS