Adam Peaty missed the chance to join Michael Phelps in an exclusive club, but he was not the only British swimmer to fall just short at the Paris Olympics.
Peaty could have become only the second man to win his third consecutive Olympic title in the event, but he failed to make it in the men’s 100-meter breaststroke final by 0.02 seconds.
The gap was identical 24 hours later in the men’s 200 m freestyle final for Matt Richards, who also settled for silver, as did Ben Proud, who missed the gold medal by just 0.05 seconds in the men’s 50 m freestyle showpiece.
Although they won three fewer medals than the eight they won in the swimming group at Tokyo 2020, the British team’s haul of one gold and four silver medals could have been reversed.
There was also a historic silver medal in synchronised swimming for Kate Shortman and Izzy Thorpe to appease Team GB, while there were near-victories for several others.
Max Litchfield achieved his third fourth place after the same heartbreaking results in Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, while Duncan Scott and Freya Colbert also missed the bronze medal by less than a second.
Scott became Scotland’s most decorated Olympian, although his overall tally of two gold and six silver medals embarrasses him compared to cycling champions Sir Chris Hoy and Sir Jason Kenny.
“I’m in a completely different category than these guys,” he said shyly. “They’ve won gold after gold after gold, and I’m grabbing silver and hanging on the backs of the others in relay races.”
With James Guy, Tom Dean and Richards cheering him on, Scott certainly knows how to close the show with a commanding final leg in the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay final, making Team GB the first swimming team in history to defend an Olympic title with the same quartet.
This was the only relay medal for Great Britain as Peaty’s positive Covid test meant he was not part of the team that defended his mixed medley title, finishing a disappointing seventh in the final.
Leon Marchand dominated the headlines on home soil at a Games where world records were scarce, blamed on a shallower-than-usual pool, but Pan Zhanle beat the men’s 100m freestyle record by 0.4 seconds, drawing renewed attention to China’s swimmers following the doping scandal ahead of the Paris 2024 Games.
Although Summer McIntosh and Katie Ledecky stood out, the British swimmers failed to secure a single podium finish at La Défense Arena and it has been eight years since they last won an individual medal.
