AT THE FOUR FRONT
SCOTT GRABS ANOTHER SILVER AND IS NOW ON COURSE TO MAKE HISTORY
It’s a measure of how far British swimming has come that Duncan scott laid his head on the starting block and didn’t lift it for a considerable time, after securing silver in the 200m individual medley yesterday.
The 24-year-old from Alloa had just completed the four lengths faster than any Briton in history and equalled the British record of three medals at a single Olympics in the process.
He is highly likely to overtake sir Chris Hoy, sir Bradley Wiggins, Max Whitlock, Jason Kenny and 1908 swimmer Henry taylor by taking a fourth medal in the 4x100m medley relay final here tomorrow.
But Britain’s swimmers have reached the level where scott’s defeat to Chinese shun Wang, whom he was closing in on when he ran out of pool, is a source of personal devastation.
In the space of four days, scott has been pipped to the wall by margins of 0.04 seconds and 0.28 seconds, with his friend and Olympic Village roommate tom Dean edging him out by the finer of those margins in tuesday’s 200m freestyle.
This is all a very long way from the troon swimming pool where his father taught him and his sister how to float on their backs and by the time scott sat down to talk about the race he had managed to put some perspective on that silver.
He returned to the fact that American legend Michael Phelps had won this race in the last four Olympics. that four of the men on those starting blocks beside him were among the ten fastest that the discipline has ever known.
He was even able to gently take the rise out of someone who could not immediately recite the name of Reginald Doherty — a tennis player at the 1900 Games — as the sixth member of the select group who have also taken three medals from a single Olympiad.
Scott claimed not to have known about this medals record business before a few journalists mentioned it. But he did shed light on the reasons why British swimming has exploded with success this week: six medals, including a first relay gold in 113 years.
Fundamental to it all, of course, is Adam Peaty — figurehead, leader and talisman — who has helped Britain’s elite swimmers to keep things together during the long months of lockdown.
‘Adam has just been himself — that’s what he did during lockdown. Be him,’ scott explained. ‘He just does things. He creates such a good environment.’
The other elite performers would see Peaty on Zoom calls or when they join together remotely from fitness bikes. Peaty’s philosophy is that no one will work harder than him. the others see his level and raise their own.
But scott and others also speak of what Peaty described earlier this week as ‘the brotherhood’ of British swimmers. A tight-knit group who have grown up together in the six or seven years since the disappointment of London 2012 brought a cut to British swimming’s funding and a need to rethink success. the quality of coaches put in place by performance director Chris spicer is indisputably significant.
this has been the week when events at the Olympics gymnastics have forced a reappraisal of how to set high demands of elite athletes without destroying those individuals. By every available account, the British swimming set-up has struck that balance.
‘I’d say there’s been a real focus on that in British swimming,’ scott said after his race yesterday. ‘On changing the culture. the environment I’ve been a part of since 2015, I’ve really enjoyed it. the professionalism from athletes. People being willing to own up — if something doesn’t go well, the onus is on them — rather than pointing fingers. And if they do well, it’s down to the coaches and the support staff around them.’
there’s room for a little superstition if someone wants to go with that. Luke Greenbank, who became Britain’s first ever Olympic backstroke medallist yesterday, grows his hair long because he felt it seemed to bring him luck. ‘Not yet!’ he said when, after taking bronze, he was asked if he had plans to chop his locks.
scott is so unassuming that he has rather slipped under the radar behind Peaty. But few, if any, have his versatility. He evolved from medley to freestyle in an attempt to break into the scotland Commonwealth Games squad.
And now for his pursuit of the historic fourth. In the medley relay quartet tomorrow morning, he joins a formidable British challenge which will see Greenbank lead off with backstroke, Peaty power into breaststroke, followed by James Guy’s butterfly and scott in the anchor leg with his freestyle.
He was not dwelling on the idea of the record medal tally. ‘It’s not something I really think about,’ he said. ‘I’ve still plenty to do before I can start thinking about it, or looking beyond this competition. I’ve got a job to do with the relay.’
But the Americans, who have tended to win a lot of these things, are still reeling from the fact they didn’t even make the podium in the 4x200m freestyle relay, which Britain dominated.
And even the Australians have conceded that team GB have left them up against it. ‘We were riding the surf of the Brits,’ one of them reflected this week.