Agency :
Adam Peaty, two-time Olympic 100m breaststroke champion, became the first British swimmer to defend an Olympic title when he won in Tokyo and he is already the favourite to win gold again at Paris 2024.
But winning another gold medal (and he has 31 of them) will not be his sole focus over the next three years – “Project Immortal” is the goal he and his coach Mel Marshall have come up with; in other words, setting a time that can never be beaten.
It’s been done before of course in athletics but some of those achievements have big question marks next to them; Marita Koch’s 400m record of 47.60, for example, was set in 1985 and still stands (no one has even got close) but it’s believed she was part of the East German state-sponsored doping programme, although she never failed a drugs test and always maintained she did nothing wrong.
So to legitimately set a time that stands the test of all time is a huge ask.
But Peaty feels he needs to set difficult goals to stay motivated.
“Doing a time that can never be beaten… the next three years is how we achieve Project Immortal,” he says.
“More than ever we have to kind of attack. I know where I need to be to get to Project Immortal.”
He does not hide the fact he is not friends with his competitors and makes a point of cutting them off.
“It’s got to be war,” he says. “You’ve got to treat them like they’re going to take something away from you because they are. “The red mist for me is my super-strength. I can use my anger to the nth degree; I can push through barriers that no one else can push through.
