Remember the Name: Adam Peaty - the British swimmer with 'scary' talent is primed for gold in 2016

Name: Adam Peaty

Age: 20

Nationality: British

Sport: Swimming (breaststroke)

Achievements so far: 3x world champion, 2x Commonwealth gold medallist, 2x world record holder.

When Connor McGregor took 13 seconds to snatch the UFC featherweight world title off Jose Aldo last weekend, he was quick to put the blink-and-you-missed it nature of his coronation into context.

“To the naked eye it was 13 seconds,” McGregor noted on Facebook later, “but to my team and my family it has been a lifetime of work to get to that 13 seconds.” It is a sentiment Peaty might soon come to agree with.

For someone who earned the second nomination of his young career for BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 2015, it perhaps seems misleading (or wilfully ignorant) to suggest that 2016 will somehow be his “breakthrough” year. But Peaty, despite his achievements in 2014 (where he dominated at the European Championships and Commonwealth Games), polled just 1.6% of the BBC vote on that occasion - and figures to do scarcely any better this time around (he may not even pip Tyson Fury), despite stepping up another level and winning three golds at the World Championships in August.

It is only in the Olympics where athletes like Peaty can gain household exposure: next year, if he becomes the first male British swimmer to win an Olympic gold for 28 years, it may prove third time lucky as far as Auntie’s major sporting award goes.

Peaty is, along with 200m freestyler James Guy, one of two British swimmers currently projected to win gold medals in Rio de Janeiro next summer, according to Infostrada’s virtual medal table. The Uttoxeter-born Brit is tipped to win gold in 100m breaststroke - just as he did at this year’s World Championships (along with the 50m and mixed medley which, unfortunately, are not Olympic disciplines).

Peaty, much like Michael Phelps, undoubtedly has a body type that is preternaturally suited to swimming, and the breaststroke in particular. A powerful 6’3”, Peaty has the sort of long limbs and stocky upper body that naturally makes him more efficient in the water than most. But such fortune in the gene lottery can only take you so far - and Peaty is determined to make the most of what nature has afforded him.

Peaty trains in the pool in two-hour sessions, at least ten times a week. On top of that he goes to the gym at least five times, to build strength, stamina and flexibility. “It’s quite intense,” Peaty told this reporter last year, before upgrading that: “It’s really intense.”

It is the sort of graft every athlete has to put in to turn whatever innate talent presented itself as a junior into genuine pedigree at a world level, something McGregor was keen to shine a light on following his moment of vindication. Peaty hopes Rio will be his equivalent of the Irishman’s 13-second knockout, albeit in the form of a 58-second 100m breaststroke.

Peaty holds the world record in both that and the 50m of the event, setting the record in the shorter sprint last season and becoming the first man ever to dip under 58 seconds in the longer one in April of this year. Scientific observers, who have studied Peaty's efforts in recent months, believe there is still further room for improvement - a daunting prospect for his rivals.

The 58-second barrier was broken in London’s Olympic pool - a venue Peaty did not even manage to snag tickets for as a fan in 2012. That underlines how new he still is to elite-level racing, but also how much of a shining hope for the future he is - at a time when British Swimming really needs to deliver results at a world level.

Amid success amongst almost all Olympic discipline for Team GB in 2012, it was swimming that offered one of the few disappointments - with no gold medals in the pool at the Aquatic Centre despite a number of well-regarded hopes. That meant they were first in line when the post-Games government funding cuts kicked in - the under-performance greeted with a slashing of budget and changing of personnel at the top.

Four years too late for some, Peaty and Guy look primed to address a level of under-achievement, particularly on the men's side, that has gone back far longer than that - perhaps all the way Seoul in 1988, where Adrian Moorhouse was the last British male to win a gold medal.

Moorhouse’s victory also came in the 100m breaststroke, lending matters a nice symmetry if Peaty ends up being the one to end the drought.

"Peaty will win the 100m breaststroke," Mark Poster, a six-time world champion, said in August. "I'll be surprised if he's beaten."

The 20-year-old certainly has the right team in place, with the coaching insight of Mel Marshall - a six-time medallist herself at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, and now a highly-regarded coach at the team's Derby base - giving him training secrets he "doesn't want to reveal to the world just yet". He also has the huge benefit of being able to call upon two-time Olympic champion Rebecca Adlington, now retired, for advice about the challenges he faces inside and outside the pool.

“She’s been there, she’s done it, so any questions I’ve had I just pop them over to her and she replies instantly with a solution or a suggestion,” Peaty revealed last year. “It’s little things like that that make the big difference.”

Adlington is certainly an avowed fan of Peaty, as much for his mental fortitude as his obvious athletic talent.

"He's one of those people who challenges himself all the time, and that's why he is so good on a world stage,” she said recently. "He wants to be breaking world records and doesn't want an easy ride at all.

"He has the best finish of anyone in the world and that's why he has those gold medals. Adam doesn't let the pressure get to him. He never gives up, he's just got so much strength. There are still little things he can do – it's actually scary to think about how fast he could go.”

Injuries permitting, we will get to find out in Brazil.

“Hopefully I can build on [the experience I have gained] and improve myself, and prove myself again in Rio," he said. "Because that’s when I really want to come out of my shell and show the world what I can do.”