The last time Great Britain won six medals at an Olympic Games was in 1908 and not many nations were swimming then. In the time I’ve been in the sport, the previous best haul at a Games I can remember is three in 1988.
What’s amazing is that it could have been even better, with seven fourth places across the team and many of those missed out on medals by mere hundredths of a second.
The shift from London 2012 is remarkable. Bill Furniss and Chris Spice, at the helm, have come in and put the structures and support systems in place for coaches and swimmers alike.
In the past, our swimmers often came in fraught and discombobulated to a major championships, and understandably you don’t perform well in that state.
On top of that, the pair implemented arguably our hardest ever selection policy and the mindset changed to one that you’re only coming here if you can win a medal. In London, we had 24 swimmers who made finals and we came away with three medals. This time we ended with six medals from 26 swimmers.
The stand-out swim has to be that of Adam Peaty and his 100m breaststroke world record. That, and his 56.6-second split in the 4x100m medley relay was just mind blowing. No one is going to get close to him in the coming years.
From a British perspective, my rising star was Duncan Scott. He has gone from being a good swimmer to a great one seemingly in the space of just one meet. His times and the belief they will have given him will be huge.
The team are so young that they’re all going to get better by Tokyo in four years time. Inevitably, having exceeded their UK Sport medal target there will be more funding too, which can only help things.
In Pictures: Team GB's medal run at Rio 2016 Olympics
But there were disappointments in the competition. We had four of our fourth places denied by swimmers who had previously produced a positive drugs test, and that’s a disappointment. You want to be able to say when you come out of the pool that you were beaten out of a medal fair and square.
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The world governing body FINA need to take notice and make a stand, and that’s not just from a British perspective but for the good of the sport.
