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"I had a whisper in his ear. 'Your night is tonight. Go and f------ get it'. He was gone." Mel Marshall and the inside story of Adam Peaty's 'Project 56'

Mel Marshall and Adam Peaty  - DAVID ROSE
Mel Marshall and Adam Peaty - DAVID ROSE

There is an extraordinary story that sums up everything about how the 12-year coach-competitor relationship between Mel Marshall and Adam Peaty has become perhaps the best in world sport.

Their so-called ‘Project 56’ dream had been set in the aftermath of Peaty’s triumph at the Rio Olympics in 2016 when, having already become the first person in history to swim under 58 seconds for the 100m breaststroke, Peaty and Marshall set an even more audacious target.

He would also be the first under 57 seconds.

Was it even possible? They did not know. You were, after all, talking about a statistical improvement in the realms of Bob Beaman’s world long jump record in 1968.

When might it happen? The Tokyo Olympics was the most obvious moment when Peaty, who is now aged 25, would be in his theoretical prime.

What nobody really expected was the semi-finals of the World Championships in South Korea last year. Except Marshall who, having coached Peaty since he was a teenage boy at the City of Derby Swimming Club, intuitively knew that the time had come following a walk in Gwangju that evening.

“I had seen what I’d seen in the prep camp,” she says. “I had seen what I’d seen in the warm up. I had seen what I’d seen in the heat. He was chomping. Itching. I could have said, ‘Chill, you don’t need to gas it tonight. The big show is tomorrow’. Your language can hold them back...but I just knew. Sometimes when the moment is there, the moment is there. It’s a feeling ‘If he doesn’t go now he will explode anyway. He had been desperate for this for three years. He doesn’t want to wait any more’.”

And so what did she say?

“I had a whisper in his ear. ‘Your night is tonight. Go and ----ing get it.’ His eye balls were red and he was gone.”

Exactly 56.88 secs later, and Peaty had further inked his name into swimming folklore. He naturally also added another gold medal the following night - his 25th in Olympic, World, Commonwealth and European Championships - but the fascinating detail is he went slightly slower. 57.14 secs. Whether he would still be waiting to swim under 57 seconds had he not seized that moment is uncertain. Yet what that story does undoubtedly demonstrate is the power of an almost telepathic coach-athlete relationship.

When Marshall later talks about how she “loves” all her athletes, and how she gave up every spare minute working with swimmers of every possible level in Derby, you don’t just hear her words. You can also feel them. She first saw Peaty when he was 14 and a relative beginner.

“He was in a lane with younger girls and I saw him sprint breaststroke. I thought, ‘Bloody hell, who is that?’ He looked like a JCB eating up the ground. Incredible. But the biggest thing is his character. He is relentless. The hardest worker in the world.”

Watching Peaty and Marshall interact during a training session in Loughborough shortly before lockdown is fascinating. They are both direct and no-nonsense, yet also deeply emotional. “Of course we sometimes fall out - we work out for seven hours every single day,” says Marshall, who says their relationship has evolved to the point where she is an advisor rather than instructor. “He drives the car - I provide the information.”

Peaty says that “she knows me probably better than I know myself” and that their “dying philosophy” will be that no-one works harder.

And what really stands out is not all the technical and physical detail, but stories of their charity cycles through Africa, how Marshall sponsored Peaty to buy his first car - a Renault Clio to get himself to training - and the wider inspiration that all these life lessons have brought. Marshall was herself a leading international swimmer but says that coaching gives her “a greater buzz”. When she then lists her priorities, it is noticeable that the first is to develop “a better person”.

There has never been more scrutiny on Olympic and Paralympic training cultures and, for Marshall, the optimum environment can be summed up succinctly. “If you want to be successful, you have to climb a high ladder, you have to walk across a tightrope and have someone encouraging you to take that journey,” she says. “But a great environment has a safety net at the bottom and people enjoy making the fall.”

Lockdown has been especially life-changing for Peaty who, with girlfriend Eiri Munro, announced the birth of a son - George-Anderson Adetola - earlier this month. Marshall is certain that it will only help his swimming. “Whenever I have dealt with parents, they develop this extra endurance and capability,” she says. “He’s over the moon, he’s loving being a dad and they’ve got a gem as you would expect. A gorgeous little boy. I think it will be a motivator beyond measure - those emotions he will feel wanting to provide and protect. It’s a privilege to watch.”

And how might the one year Olympic delay impact upon Peaty? “For his character, I think it plays into his hands,” says Marshall. “He doesn’t want it easy. If someone told us that the Olympics would be in the sea tomorrow in Skegness, and we had to put our own lane ropes in, so be it. The more difficult the better.” Marshall, whose own lockdown has included a weekly dance and sing-song with the residents of the sheltered houses near her home, also believes that athletes will arrive in Tokyo with a new perspective. “Sport is the only thing - well, apart maybe from Britain’s Got Talent - which gets you on your feet and feeling emotions through someone else’s triumph or loss. It’s the bread of life. It’s the heart of the community. If that Olympic Cames comes off, and we have moved through all this and have a vaccine, it will be the most spectacular event anyone has ever seen in their lifetime.”