By Sam Blacker on SwimSwam
2026 AQUATICS GB SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
Tuesday, April 14th – Sunday, April 19th Prelims at 9:30am local (4:30am ET)/B-Finals & Junior Finals at 6pm local (1pm ET)/A-finals at 7:45pm local (2:45pm ET) London Aquatics Centre European Championships Selection Policy SwimSwam Preview Meet Central Entries Prelims Recaps: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 Finals Recaps: Day 1| Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 Start Lists/Live Results LivestreamThree years ago, James Wilby won the men’s 100 breaststroke at the British Swimming Championships in 59.94. Adam Peaty was out, taking time away from the sport after placing 4th at the Commonwealth Games on his return from fracturing his foot mid-season, which had caused him to miss the 2022 World Championships.
Wilby’s time was the slowest by a British champion since Daniel Sliwinski in 2012, and 1.36 seconds slower than Peaty had swum at the meet 12 months prior. That is not to knock Wilby by any means – he is an Olympic gold medalist on the mixed medley relay, a world bronze medalist from 2019, and the 9th-fastest performer in history at 58.46. He was also the reigning Commonwealth champion, clocking 59.25 to win the 100 breast in Birmingham.
But he was a swimmer at the tail end of his career, 29 years old when winning the British title in 2023. He had been a more than able lieutenant to Peaty through the years, making multiple world finals and deputising on relays with aplomb, but it had been nearly two years since a British swimmer other than him or Peaty had broken 1:00.
That had been Ross Murdoch, clocking 59.51 at the 2021 Olympic Trials. He was no up-and-coming junior then either, 27 years of age and one year away from signing off his career with a pair of bronze medals at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
After those 2023 British Championships, there was a sobering stat. Only two British swimmers born in the 2000s had broken 1:01 – Archie Goodburn and Greg Butler – and only one current junior swimmer had broken 1:02 in Elliot Woodburn, now at Georgia.
British breaststroke had experienced it’s best-ever decade, with international medals won by four different swimmers from 2012-2022: Michael Jamieson, Ross Murdoch, James Wilby, and Adam Peaty. However, the junior ranks had been sparse, with only Ross Murdoch (one of those four), Craig Benson, and Archie Goodburn progressing from junior international medalists to a senior international team.
With no timeline on, nor even a guarantee of, a Peaty return after the 2022-23 season, the curtain looked to be closing on a period littered with hardware. Exit stage left. Pursued by a bear if you were feeling so inclined. The 2022 Commonwealth Games, with gold medals for Wilby and Peaty, looked a denouement, an homage to all which had gone before.
Of course, Peaty returned in 2024 for the Paris Olympics, seeking to win his third consecutive gold in the 100 breast. He clocked 57.94 at the 2024 British Championships, his fastest swim since the 2021 Olympics and faster than anyone in history except Qin Haiyang and Arno Kamminga.
Silver in Paris in 59.05, 0.02 seconds behind Italy’s Nicolo Martinenghi, marked a successful comeback season, but the issue of depth was still apparent. James Wilby, the second British swimmer in the 100 breast, bowed out in the semi-finals, and they had no swimmers in the 200 breast. With Wilby’s retirement after the Games, the second spot on the team was open.
There were green shoots from the junior ranks in 2024 as well. Max Morgan became the first junior to break 1:01 since Charlie Attwood in 2016 when he posted 1:00.83 for 5th at the 2024 British Championships, while 23-year-old Archie Goodburn was a whisker away from a 59-point swim as he clocked 1:00.03.
Morgan lowered his best and age group record for 16-year-olds to 1:00.10 that summer, while Filip Nowacki won European Junior silver in the 200 breast in 2:12.74, also an age group record. Morgan reclaimed that record three weeks later in 2:12.24, with the pair having lowered the standard for 16-year-olds by nearly four seconds between them.
At the 2025 Championships, the picture was a little murky still. Peaty was sitting out the season, with Greg Butler doing the breaststroke double in times of 59.93/2:10.17. Morgan was 2nd in the 100 in 1:00.10, with Nowacki 2nd in the 200 in 2:11.09 and 3rd in the 100 in 1:00.28.
The performances of all three in the summer of 2025 showed that there would be life after Peaty. Butler swam the 100 breast and 200 breast at the World Championships, setting lifetime bests of 59.53 in the 100 and 2:09.60 in the 200, reaching the semi-finals of both events. Morgan won World Junior bronze in the 100 as he broke 1:00 for the first time in 59.93.
However, it would be Nowacki who was the story of the summer. He broke out in a huge way, going unbeaten in the 100 breast and 200 breast across both the European Junior Championships and the World Junior Championships.
At the former, he won gold in the 100 in a new age group record of 59.59, before shattering the European Junior record to win the 200 in 2:08.32. A matchup with World Junior record holder Shin Ohashi in the 100 and 200 followed the next month in Otopeni. Nowacki got the better of his Japanese rival on both occasions, lowering his PBs to 59.20 in the 100 and 2:07.32 in the 200.
The latter was just 0.02 seconds off the senior British record and hacked another second off his junior mark, but more impressively would have won the senior World Championships that summer. Qin Haiyang took the win in Singapore in 2:07.41, 0.09 seconds slower than Nowacki’s swim.
Into the 2025-26 season then there was significant optimism. Looking on the way out two years earlier, breaststroke looked as though it could be one of the deeper strokes for Great Britain in the summer of 2026. The quartet of Peaty, Butler, Morgan, and Nowacki had the potential to give the selectors headaches at the Aquatics GB Championships.
That has been the case. After no men hit the World Championships qualifying standard of 59.75 last year, we saw three dip under the stiffer European qualification time of 59.65 this week. Peaty swam sub-59 for the first time since the Paris Olympics to win in 58.97, with Nowacki (59.39) and Morgan (59.56) both swimming faster than Peaty’s age group record for 18-year-olds of 59.92.
Butler was 4th in 1:00.21, just three tenths off the time he swam 12 months previously, but set a new PB in the 50 breast of 27.53. Peaty and Nowacki again claimed the top two spots there in 26.64 and 27.10 respectively, with Morgan 3rd in 27.22.
Nowacki finally won his British title, his first senior title, in a fantastic 200 breast battle with Butler, clocking 2:08.52 to the Loughborough swimmer’s 2:09.51. That saw both qualify for the European Championships this summer, a startling turnaround from two years ago when no men qualified for the Olympic Games in the event.
What Britain has now is depth which harkens back to the golden era of the mid-to-late 2010s. British swimmers claimed five of the nine world and Olympic medals available in the 100 breast between 2015 and 2017, and there were four swimmers who broke 1:00 every year from 2017 to 2019.
There are four active British swimmers right now who have PBs of 59-point or better- Peaty (56.88), Nowacki (59.20), Butler (59.53), and Morgan (59.56). If Archie Goodburn (1:00.03) can find another four hundredths that would be five – more than at any other point in their history.
The breaststrokes had been some of the showcase events for the British men. Of the 50 individual world championship medals they have won, 17 have been in breaststroke, more than any other stroke. Nine of those have come in the last decade, but only one has been since 2019.
Will that decline be reversed in 2027? Peaty is no longer the shoo-in for medals he used to be in the 50 and 100, and his focus on ending his career at LA will likely see him prioritise that above the Budapest World Championships next summer. He will be 32 in 2027. If he is to be in vintage form at the Olympics he may need to work through next summer.
Nowacki and Morgan should be a lethal 1-2 combo next summer however. Nowacki looks a sure bet to be a world medalist at some point in his career, most likely in the 200. Is there any reason why that couldn’t be next year? He has the nous required for big races, beat all comers in the 100 and 200 last summer, and has not seemed fazed this year by the increased scrutiny that comes with being one of the best in the world.
A move to Loughborough this fall may be the only slight reservation. Swimmers generally take a little while to adjust to a move in training base, especially when transitioning from a junior setup to a senior one.
However, that change is happening this summer, two years before the Games in LA. He will be 20 years old in the summer of 2028, as will Morgan, and with the improvements they have shown over the last 24 months it would be foolish to think that they will not progress even further.
They rank 3rd and 4th among European men so far this season, and 2nd and 3rd among Commonwealth swimmers. Only Nowacki will be at the former competition, but both will swim in Glasgow at the latter. Could the trio of Peaty, Nowacki, and Morgan sweep the podium there? It is a statement that does not seem ludicrous to consider.
British men’s breaststroke has been at its best in the previous decade when it did not live and die by Adam Peaty. Ross Murdoch and James Wilby won world medals in the 100 breast in 2015 and 2017 respectively, with Wilby being a fixture in international finals for half a decade alongside Peaty.
The strength in depth they now have harks back to those days. Peaty may not even be the most likely medal contender. Nowacki’s 200 is the second-fastest of any swimmer since the start of the 2024-25 season, and he has been on a rapid improvement curve. He has seemed mature in interviews, joined the broadcast team on day 3, and delivered in the pool. A potential European title in the 200 this summer may depend on whether Leon Marchand swims the event, but there are not many other swimmers he will encounter that you would not back him against.
In 2023 it looked like the latest chapter of British breaststroke had closed, as it had after David Wilkie, Duncan Goodhew, and Adrian Moorhouse. Instead, Peaty looks to be bridging across to the next era. An epilogue has turned into a sequel.
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