Matt Richards On Conflicting Olympic Medal Emotions, Pan Zhanle & His “Fantastic” Wedding Day
Matt Richards sits at his new home in Manchester reflecting on a momentous few months in which he has added gold and silver to his Olympic medal haul, got married and moved from the English south to the north.
The 21-year-old joined Tom Dean, James Guy and Duncan Scott on his global debut in Tokyo in 2021 as Great Britain won gold in the 4×200 freestyle relay.
No four individuals had combined to win relay gold medals at two different Olympics but the quartet came together once more in Paris for an historic victory.
Tom Dean, Matthew Richards, Duncan Scott & James Guy: Photo Courtesy: Deepbluemedia
Add to that second in the individual 200 free and the Welshman has two golds and a silver from two Olympics – how does that sound?
“It would have been nicer if I could say it was three golds!” Richards told Swimming World.
“Again, it’s a dream come true. If you’d have offered me that 10 years ago, I’d have snapped your hand off for it. I’m only 21 – I plan on going for a long time yet, I don’t see myself leaving the sport for at least another decade. So there is a lot more I still want to achieve, there’s a lot more that I still want to do.
“I’m in a great place and I’m loving the sport, I’m enjoying it, I’m learning new things every day and from the Olympics I’m going to have to learn how to finish at the wall properly I think!”
The Conflicting Emotions Of Olympic Silver
Richards qualified for the individual final in seventh place, putting him out in lane one for the final.
Third at the final turn, there was nothing to choose between Richards, teammate Scott, David Popovici and Luke Hobson of the USA coming into the last metres.
Indeed, it appeared that Richards was on the brink of victory only for Popovici to come through perfectly as he became the first Romanian man to win an Olympic swimming title.
He finished 0.02 ahead of Richards with Hobson third, one place ahead of Tokyo silver medallist Scott as 0.15 separated the first four men home.
Matt Richards: Photo Courtesy: Andrea Masini / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
With races remaining, he put all his emotions – good and bad – to one side and focused on his next event.
It is something he is still digesting and recognises that it’s all part of the “swings and roundabouts” of elite sport having won the 2023 world title by 0.02 ahead of teammate Dean.
“I’m still processing it now, the good and the bad of it,” he said.
“It’s something that it takes time to get your head around and emotionally understand how you feel about that sort of race.
“On the one hand you won an Olympic silver medal, it’s a huge achievement, it’s fantastic but on the other hand you can’t help but feel like you’ve lost the gold, especially when the margin’s that tight.
“And that is something that you do have to process and you do have to work your way through but that’s sport, that’s elite sport.”
Pan Zhanle And The 100 Free That “Didn’t Quite Click”
Richards also competed in the 100 free in Paris, a year after he set a British record of 47.45 en-route to fifth at the World Championships in Fukuoka.
Kyle Chalmers won the 2023 world title in 47.15 ahead of Jack Alexy (47.31) and Maxime Grousset who clinched bronze by the tightest of margins in 47.42, 0.01 ahead of Pan Zhanle and 0.03 ahead of Richards.
At the Asian Games in September that year, Pan went through the 47-second barrier in 46.97, 0.11 off Popovici’s WR of 46.86.
The Chinese swimmer then became the fastest man in history as he led off the 4×100 freestyle relay at the Doha worlds in 46.80.
Come Paris and he sliced a huge 0.40 from that standard in a staggering 46.40.
It was the largest world-record drop in the event since 1976, when South African Jonty Skinner took .55 off the mark of American Jim Montgomery.
Pan’s performance prompted a range of reactions throughout the swimming world and beyond from awe through astonishment to downright scepticism.
Questions were asked and fingers were pointed in the light of news that emerged in April that 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for banned performance-enhancing substance trimetazidine at a training camp in early 2021.
Pan Zhanle: Photo Courtesy: Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia/ Insidefoto
The swimmers were cleared by the Chinese Anti-Doping Agency (CHINADA) as a case of environmental contamination, and the World Anti-Doping Agency assented.
Chalmers, who was 1.08secs behind Pan in second, and bronze medallist Popovici both congratulated the new world record-holder on his eye-watering time, stating they felt it was done fairly.
Richards described it as “fantastic” and “incredible to watch.” Of whether he could understand the controversy, he added:
“It’s a tough one. Personally, it’s not something that I would want to comment on: I am very much – I’m going to get in and race people regardless of what goes on in the media, regardless of what controversies other people talk about, it’s not my place to comment on that, it’s my job to get in and race people.
“If they’re in the race then the powers that be have determined that they should be in the race, and as far as I’m concerned that means I’ve got to race them.
“I had a drugs test this morning. I know I’m clean and I’ve got to trust that everyone else in that race is also clean and get in and race them regardless of what the media’s saying.”
Richards’ focus is instead on improving his 100 free in which he was sixth in his Olympic semifinal and 12th overall in 48.09.
That followed fourth at the Doha worlds, albeit unrested, in 47.82, 0.04 off Nandor Nemeth in third.
Now he and coach Ryan Livingstone are looking to identify what didn’t work and reassemble the puzzle pieces.
“I wasn’t at all satisfied with my 100 last season,” said Richards. “It just didn’t quite click. We’ve now had time to go away and start figuring out why that was and what we can do to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
“From my personal perspective, I still feel that I underachieved on that, I think I had a lot more to give on that event and it didn’t quite come to fruition last year. Which again is fine: we can learn from that and move forwards.”
A “Fantastic” Wedding Day & A Move From Millfield To Manchester
Shortly after returning from the French capital, Richards married fiancée Emily Large in rural Herefordshire.
Richards said:
“It was awesome, it was a fantastic day. I don’t think it’s often that people can get to the end of their wedding day and say that nothing went wrong: just the entire day went to plan, there wasn’t anything we would have changed or we’d have adjusted.
“It was a really special day: we’ve got all of the photos back now so that was nice sitting and flicking through them all.”
The pair have moved from Millfield to Manchester after coach Livingstone took up a new role as Aquatics GB Manchester Performance Centre Lead Coach.
Both are part of Livingstone’s training group along with Guy, who returns to his north-west roots.
While there are no plans to go to short-course worlds in Budapest, watching the World Cup series had him hankering after competition.
He’ll do stand-ups in private before a public meet in December.
But for Richards, life in Manchester is good.
“Absolutely loving it up here now, the city’s fantastic, there’s so much more for us to do and we’ve got a really nice group of people we are training with.
“(It’s) a fantastic facility – I think they’ve just spent 30 million renovating the pool so it literally feels like we have got brand new facilities which is awesome.”