Adam Peaty claims men’s 100m breaststroke gold

Ryland James 07:19 04/08/2015
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  • Pride of Britain: Adam Peaty.

    Adam Peaty won the men’s 100m breaststroke gold at the world swimming championships to become Britain’s first world champion in the event for 40 years.

    The 20-year-old, who is making his worlds debut, swam 58.52 seconds with Olympic champion Cameron van der Burgh of South Africa taking silver at 0.07 secs as he lost out to the Commonwealth champion on the wall. Britain’s Ross Murdoch took bronze at 0.57s back.

    Peaty’s gold was his country’s first at a world championships since Liam Tancock won the 50m backstroke in Shanghai in 2011. He added the world crown to his Commonwealth Games victory in Glasgow last year, when he also beat Van der Burgh.

    “I’m really happy with that and Cameron put up a good fight,” said Peaty, who says he is already relishing the pair’s clash at the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games next year.

    “I’m sure it’s going to be another tough race in Rio.

    “It wasn’t the time I expected to do and it wasn’t the time I wanted, but world championship finals and Olympic finals are only about the win and I brought it home.”

    Peaty fought for the title, chasing Van der Burgh down hard in the dying stages to nick gold in the final three strokes.

    It left the South African to again settle for worlds silver having lost out to Australia’s Christian Sprenger two years ago.

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    This is the first time Britain has a world champion in the event since David Wilkie won both the 100 and 200m breaststroke titles at the 1975 championships in Cali, Colombia.

    Meanwhile, France’s Florent Manaudou won the men’s 50m butterfly title to claim his second gold in Kazan.

    Manaudou, the Olympic 50m freestyle champion, touched the wall at 22.97secs with Nicholas Santos of Brazil winning silver at 0.12secs back with Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh taking bronze at 0.18secs.

    “I am pretty happy. It was my first individual world title, but my biggest target is Saturday (the 50m freestyle final),” said the Frenchman. “It was not as quick as my semi-final time, but I knew I had a bit of a gap.”

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