Adam Peaty bids to reinvent himself as he targets 200m gold at 2020 Tokyo Olympics

Adam Peaty’s prospects of going one step further with a move up in distance to 200 metres took on new meaning last night after he retained both world breaststroke titles with another exhilarating dash to gold.

Peaty claimed 50m breaststroke victory as he dipped under 26 seconds for the second time to blow away his rivals. It followed 100m gold on the second night of racing at an increasingly raucous Duna Arena. The double was really never in doubt; Peaty knew it and so did his challengers.

His individual events now over, it was the manner of his two world records in the 50m and edging closer to the magical 56-second barrier in the 100m which left Peaty revelling in the moment.

Since he won his first international title at the Commonwealth Games exactly three years ago, Peaty has now accumulated 16 golds on the world stage.

He said: “My main aim, even though I was a young, skinny kid, was to try to take on the world, ‘can I win all the grand slams in two years?’ That’s European, Commonwealths, worlds and Olympics. I didn’t even think about world records. In three years it’s pretty good for me.”

Peaty said after Rio that he would probably have two more Olympic Games in him. Yet without the 50m as an Olympic event, the 22-year-old will never be able to match Michael Phelps’ 23 Olympic golds.

However, Peaty could make inroads when he tests the waters in the 200m breaststroke this winter. Nothing is confirmed, but he has hinted he will race at Commonwealth Games trials in December over the distance in a bid to double up before the 2020 Olympics.

“The long term goal is Tokyo,” he told Standard Sport before these championships. “I don’t want to jeopardise anything but I want to branch out. I don’t think it will be too hard and I won’t have to change my training.”

If this sounds easy enough, the 2019 World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea and the 2020 Games will be severe tests.

At the 2015 worlds, Peaty placed 26th in heats over 200m, but by then he had already mustered his first two world titles.

Two years on and a clutch of swimmers are setting out their stalls. A quartet of likely candidates started their 200m tilts this morning and Peaty will be monitoring names such as Olympic champion Dmitriy Balandin of Kazakhstan, Japanese duo Ippei Watanabe and Yasuhiro Koseki, aged 20 and 25 respectivley, German rival Marco Koch and British compatriot Ross Murdoch.

Breaststroke is a revered discipline in Japan following the golden exploits of Kosuke Kitajima at the 2004 and 2008 Games.

Peaty’s marketability is already rising in Asia and, naturally, Kitajima is Peaty’s hero. It is a delicous thought: Peaty, the master of his art, featuring in a fingertip finish for 200m gold against his Japanese rivals.

But that is for the future. Peaty now has three days off before he attempts to help the 4x100m medley team upgrade Olympic silver to world gold by beating the United States.

“We’ll see what tactical changes we’ve got to make,” said Peaty. “Hopefully we’ll give some of them a run for their money.”

Rio and, now, his fine feats in Hungary have given Peaty cause to reflect on how far he had come since he missed out on the 2013 world championships by 0.04 seconds.

“That changed me forever,” he reflects. “I said to myself after that race that’s never happening to me again. Mel [Marshall, his coach] and me worked very, very hard and the rest is history.”