Tokyo 2020: When is Team GB’s Adam Peaty’s next race?

Peaty became the first British swimmer to retain an Olympic title with his 100m breaststroke victory on Monday

Adam Peaty became the first British swimmer to retain an Olympic title in the early hours of Monday morning after winning the men’s 100m breaststroke final.

The 26-year-old was a huge favourite to defend his crown and evidenced the reasons why by recording the fastest qualifying time in the semi-final heats, clocking 57.63 seconds at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre.

He then bettered that in the final with a time of 57.37 seconds, the fifth fastest in the history of the event.

Attention now turns to the Briton’s next appearance, which will come in the mixed 4x100m medley heats.

The heats are due to begin at 11am BST on Thursday 29 July, though the exact time at which Peaty will take to the water is as yet unknown.

Peaty will then take part in the men’s 4x100m medley relay heats on Friday 30 July. They are also set to start at 11am BST.

Following his gold medal-winning performance on Monday, Peaty said: “Sport has an amazing power to inspire people and an amazing motivation for people this morning getting up in Britain who have been through a tough time.

“These last 18 months, every single day has almost been in the dark. Covid has taken a lot of fun out of things. We have been at home a long time.

“All these days we spend, if you put into a percentage, it’s 99.9 per cent in the dark, searching for a bit of light, then the 0.01 per cent was that performance. That’s why I put that amount of investment into what I do.

“Hopefully this is a catalyst for not only Team GB but also the people back home to go to another gear and say we’ve been through a tough time, there is a lot of complaining, a lot of excuses, just negative things, but you’ve got to switch your mindset and that’s exactly what we had to do.”

Additional reporting by PA