Adam Peaty has warned his rivals that he is in such good shape he could break his own world record in Tokyo when he seeks to become the first British swimmer to retain an Olympic title. Team GB’s biggest banker for gold in Tokyo, who begins the defence of his 100m breaststroke title in Saturday’s heats, also insists he feels “liberated” after the birth of his son George last year – and ready to attack his world record of 56.88sec. “It sounds very cliched but I’m very obsessed with continuous improvement and continually pushing the boundaries of what is possible,” said Peaty. “I don’t want to end my career and go ‘I should have done that, or I should have done this’. And while getting a world record is obviously very, very hard, it’s never impossible. I think it’s within my reach if I get my preparation right during these next six days. “I wasn’t in my best form when I swam 57.66 at the European championships. I still had my hairy moustache and wasn’t mentally in those championships. But we’ve done a lot of power and strength development and leaned down a bit since then. And I know that I grow 10%, if not more, at an Olympic Games.” Peaty is so far clear of his rivals he holds the top 20 times in history – with no one else breaking 58 seconds. And he has not lost a 100m breaststroke race in major competitions for more than seven years. So it is no surprise that he is confident that, barring a lightning strike or act of God, he will win again. “I guess it is just a byproduct of what I have done over the past seven years,” he said. “Without sounding arrogant, if you are as dominant as I have been – I haven’t lost a major championship in the 100m in a long time – it is nice going into a Games with that heritage. I have that history of performing when it matters, and going into these Games I am the most liberated I have been. “Let us hope that a lightning strike doesn’t hit me,” he added. “But anything can happen in sport. We all know that. And sometimes the greats do fall. But I believe that this Olympics is not my time yet. I just love to race, I love to scrap. That’s why I swim. Because it gives me something that I can’t get in normal life.” Peaty also insisted that he remembers what it was like to lose – and uses the thought of defeat as motivation to push him on. “I play it out in my head quite a lot, me losing,” he said.“I think it’s kind of a healthy balance I’ve got that I do think what it’s going to be like if I touch in second or third. But for me, those thoughts are suppressed when I race. I’ve got to be 110% confident in my own ability.” And the 26-year-old also believes it helps that he feels more liberated than ever after becoming a dad. “I also think the lockdown last year gave me that kind of a second wind,” he said. “I always felt like I was charging, charging, charging, but now I can switch off very easily. It might be to do with having a kid. I feel I’ve got more energy when it comes to holding camp because I haven’t got a kid screaming or needing to feed. It is also about having a bit of maturity in this last year.” Peaty also gave a nuanced and thoughtful response to those who question whether the Olympic Games should go ahead during a global pandemic. “It’s a hard question,” he replied. “You do have to think about the people who live here. And, at the opposite end of the spectrum, you have the athletes who have trained for five years, every single day, getting up at 5am and going to bed at half 10 with a screaming baby. They commit their whole lives to this three-week-long event. You’re never going to get the right answer. “I’m biased because I want them to happen, I want to race. But I can feel for those who don’t want the Games to happen at all. For me, I’m double vaccinated. I’ve taken every single measure to make sure I’m not going to spread it to anyone else if I did have it. I wear double masks. That’s all I can do. Some athletes are coming out here without any vaccinations. You’ve got to ask them the same question. Unfortunately, it’s not an easy one to answer.”