Peaty and Proud win gold in Budapest

Disappointment for O’Connor

Olympic champion Adam Peaty claimed an expected title before proving the inspiration for GB team-mate Ben Proud to secure a gold medal at the World Championships in Budapest last night.

Peaty bettered his own championship record to finish in 57.47s.

Moments after he had received his second successive 100m breaststroke world title Proud won the 50m butterfly in 22.75.

Peaty was 1.32 seconds clear of the field and was happy with his performance after a first length which was 0.11s under world record pace.

Proud and Peaty are both 22 and both won gold medals at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. It has taken the Plymouth swimmer little longer to take a global title a but he paid tribute to trailblazer Peaty.

“He has really taken Britain a step forwards,” Proud said.

“It’s made it easier for that next person to go up and win gold.

“We saw it two years ago with James Guy. Britain’s a force to be reckoned with right now.”

Guy won the 200m freestyle title in Kazan, Russia, in 2015 and qualified second fastest in defence of his title. Fastest was his team-mate Duncan Scott.

Bronze went to Kirill Prigoda of Russia in 59.05, while Briton Ross Murdoch was eighth in 59.45.

Proud won the non-Olympic 50m butterfly by 0.04s ahead of Nicholas Santos of Brazil, who finished in 22.79, with Ukraine’s Andrii Govorov taking bronze in 22.84.

There was disappointment for Siobhan O’Connor, the Olympic silver medallist, who had to settle for seventh behind home favourite Katinka Hosszu in the 200m individual medley.

Olympic champion Hosszu was roared on by a partisan crowd to win in 2.07.00, while O’Connor finished in 2.10.41.

Sarah Vasey and Kathleen Dawson advanced to the 100m breaststroke and 100m backstroke final, respectively, in eighth place.

Guy and Scott will be optimistic of adding to Britain’s medal tally today.

Guy won the first 200m freestyle semi-final in 1.45.18 and Scott won the second semi-final in 1.45.16, ahead of Olympic champion Sun Yang of China.

Picture: AP. Adam Peaty on his way to winning the men’s 100m breaststroke final in Hungary.