Peaty & Hopkin Among Brits Training On Australia’s Gold Coast

With the 2023 Long Track World Championships scheduled for July, countries around the world are already starting their journeys towards qualification.

For British swimmers, all eyes are on the country’s swimming championships in April, the only selection event for Fukuoka. To help prepare for this high-pressure competition, several British stars stayed in Australia after competing in the Short Track World Championships in Melbourne.

Two of the swimmers who took part in training camps on the Gold Coast were 26-year-old freestyle ace Anna Hopkin and 28-year-old Adam Peaty.

Multi-Olympic champion Peaty spent time with fellow Olympic champion Kyle Chalmers in South Australia before heading to the Gold Coast. The pair toured Chalmers’ home town of Port Lincoln where Peaty described the environment as ‘very hot and very humid’.

Peaty told SwimSwam he was looking forward to being joined by 200m breaststroke world record holder Zac Stubblety-Cook, as well as Commonwealth Games bronze medalist Sam Williamson. He said he expected the training trio to ‘push each other to new heights’ during the 6-week camp which includes 10 long course sessions per week.

Finally, Peaty will return to Great Britain and then head to the Lausanne Swimming Cup which is on the calendar for February 24th – February 26th. He also expects to race at the Edinburgh International Swimming Meet, which runs from March 10 to 12 before the aforementioned British Swimming Championships in April.

As for Hopkin, reflecting on her past year, the former Arkansas Razorback calls 2022 “a mixed bag,” despite taking bronze in the women’s 50m freestyle in Melbourne. During her busy summer she also collected 3 relay medals at the Commonwealth Games as well as a trio of relay medals at the European Championships.

Loughborough’s Hopkin said: “Overall I would have liked to have swam better, especially as an individual, but I got really good racing exposure as we had three major long course championships and I think I got the volume of racing really well handle.

“I also had good relay success at both Europeans and Commonwealths as well as finishing the year with an individual bronze at the World Short Course Championships which was definitely a highlight for me. I think others [highlights] retained our European title in the 4x100m Freestyle relay, after a very long season we still managed to put together a very good race which bodes well for the coming years, and then that 50m Freestyle bronze at World got short shrift. I really wanted an individual medal this year and I fell short a few times, so to get one at the last competition of the year meant a lot.”

As for the annual trek to the Gold Coast, Hopkin said: “I think these camps are really helpful, it focuses the mind to push harder for that block we’ve got away and there’s no home distraction to take away from training. Exercise is also very difficult in the heat – even when you’re in the pool, the air temperature is much higher than what we’re used to, which adds an additional challenge,” she said.

“The atmosphere is really good, it’s a small, close group and we all push each other. There is a lot of hard work ahead, but we are very lucky to be able to train in such a beautiful part of the world in the sunshine.”

“I think schedule-wise it’s pretty similar. We still do the same amount of sessions, although we tend to add more circuit training and have more time to focus on pre-pool and post-workout recovery. Generally, training is a step up from what we would do at home because we have a short amount of time to make as many gains as possible.