Less than a year had elapsed since he\u2019d been crowned Olympic champion with the British 4x200m relay in Tokyo.<\/p>\n
However, his progress had stalled and he\u2019d just finished 30th<\/sup> in the 200 free prelims in Budapest in 1:48.74.<\/p>\n He won bronze in the Hungarian capital in the 4×2 after a prelims swim before making way for James Guy<\/strong> in the final and was part of the 4×1 quartet that finished fourth.<\/p>\n But Richards had already made plans to leave the British Swimming Performance Centre Bath<\/strong> where\u2019d he been since 2020, working under Jol Finck<\/strong> and latterly Dave McNulty<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Awaiting was a new chapter at Millfield in Somerset, south-west England, where he\u2019d be working under the guidance of coach Ryan Livingstone<\/strong>.<\/p>\n After his move, Richards went straight off to the Commonwealth Games<\/strong> and on to the European Championships<\/strong>, where he claimed a relay medal of each colour.<\/p>\n Matt Richards & Tom Dean: Photo Courtesy: Andrea Staccioli \/ Deepbluemedia \/ Insidefoto<\/p><\/div>\n Fast-forward to the evening of 25 July 2023 at the Fukuoka worlds and Richards led home Olympic champion Tom Dean<\/strong> for an historic British one-two in the 200 free.<\/a><\/p>\n After fifth in the 100 free in a 47.45 British record, he joined forces with Dean, Guy and Duncan Scott<\/strong> as the quartet added world gold to their 4×200 Olympic crown<\/a>.<\/p>\n Richards completed his collection with bronze after leading off the mixed 4x100m freestyle with Scott, Anna Hopkin<\/strong> and Freya Anderson\u00a0<\/strong>as the quartet set a European record of 3:21.68.<\/p>\n It concluded 12 months of contrasting fortunes for the 20-year-old who recalled some turbulent times.<\/p>\n Richards told Swimming World:<\/p>\n \u201cIt was frustrating. For me, I knew that the 2022 season wasn\u2019t my best, I knew something wasn\u2019t right and something wasn\u2019t clicking and that was a case for me of going away with my team and figuring out what the problem was.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere it was going wrong, how we could fix it and improve and move forwards. In elite sport you learn a lot more from those seasons than the ones that go perfectly and I think that showed this year.<\/p>\n \u201cI had the success in 2021, I had that tough year in 2022 and we used those lessons and actioned that learning to be able to improve and move forward this year.<\/p>\n \u201cI think now it\u2019s all about building upon that and remembering the lessons from 2022, learning from the things that well and didn\u2019t go well this year and implementing all of that into the Olympic season where obviously everything has to be as close to perfect as possible.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Located in Street, Somerset, Millfield is an independent school for boarding and day students with dedicated swim programmes for all standards up to international levels.<\/p>\n Its training facilities include an eight-lane, 50m pool and a smaller pool which can be used for swim down, rehab or swimming lessons plus an extensive gym for land-based training.<\/p>\n Former students have competed at every Olympics since 1968 including Duncan Goodhew<\/strong> \u2013 100m breaststroke champion at Moscow 1980 \u2013 and Mark Foster<\/strong>, winner of more than 50 international medals.<\/p>\n Five-time Olympic medallist Guy spent seven years there from the age of 13 before returning this summer following seven years at Bath seeking fresh impetus with Paris 2024 on the horizon.<\/p>\n Euan Dale<\/strong> – double 2006 Commonwealth medallist and 2008 Olympian – is director of swimming with coaches Livingstone and Rachel Aldington<\/strong> along with\u00a0athletic development lead Daniel Waddingham and development coach Keiran Smith<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Emily Large: Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick<\/p><\/div>\n Guy cited Livingstone\u2019s meticulous, personalised approach<\/a> as one of the reasons behind his return to Millfield while Richards described the former Newcastle Swim Team<\/strong> head coach as \u201cthe main pull\u201d behind his choice.<\/p>\n He added:<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s exceptional, he\u2019s like no-one else.<\/p>\n \u201cHis understanding and knowledge of the sport and the science behind what we do is pretty incredible.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019ll probably tell me off for singing his praises so highly but I think he\u2019s the real reason why I\u2019ve had so much success in the last year.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the partnership between myself and him works really well because I\u2019m very much a science-based athlete.<\/p>\n \u201cI like to know what we\u2019re doing and why and so having that partnership between the two of us works really well for me.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Under Livingstone, the Performance Centre<\/strong> squad do nine sessions a week from 8-10am and 2-4pm plus gym work.<\/p>\n Also among the training squad is Emily Large<\/strong>, Richards\u2019 fianc\u00e9e who returned to the GB team at the 2023 worlds, five years after competing at the 2018 European Championships<\/strong> and Commonwealth Games<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Like Richards, Large – the 2017 world junior 200 fly champion – has thrived under Livingstone\u2019s watchful eye, coming 10th<\/sup> in the 200 fly in Fukuoka.<\/p>\n The pair get married in August 2024, weeks after the conclusion of the Paris Olympics, and Richards pointed to Large\u2019s empathy and support in those times of struggle.<\/p>\n He said:<\/p>\n \u201cI think the dynamic we have where we train with each other every day, we spend the time in between training together every day, we spend pretty much all our time together.<\/p>\n \u201cLots of people that definitely wouldn\u2019t work but for us it works really well.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we know how to balance the two worlds and be able to differentiate work from home; being able to be withs someone who gets it and understands the world that we work in\u2026.<\/p>\n \u201cLast year when things weren\u2019t going well for me, Emily knows what that feels like, she\u2019s had periods in her career where things haven\u2019t been going well and we can share that.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very lucky: I can\u2019t sing her praises high enough. I\u2019d like to think she would probably say it\u2019s the same for her, being able to share her experience with someone else who also gets it on her end.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n With his winning time of 1:44.30 in Fukuoka, Richards went third in the British rankings behind Dean and Scott who went 1:44.22 and 1:44.26 respectively en-route to gold and silver at the Tokyo Olympics.<\/p>\n It also elevated him to ninth all-time with Paul Biedermann<\/strong> and his super-suited 1:42.00 from the 2009 worlds still atop the rankings.<\/p>\n Phelps on 1:42.96 and David Popovici<\/strong> with his 1:42.97 as he claimed the 2022 European title are the only other men inside 1:43.<\/p>\n Michael Phelps: Photo Courtesy: Buyrealmarketing.com<\/p><\/div>\n Richards cites 28-time Olympic medallist Phelps as an inspiration along with Adam Peaty<\/strong>, the three-time Olympic champion and British teammate.<\/p>\n Richards said:<\/p>\n \u201cPhelps obviously is a massive one.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing able to watch him on the telly growing up and being able to see the unbelievable things he did in the sport was very, very inspiring and that was something I always looked up to and wanted to try and chase and become my own version of that.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a lot of ways, Adam as well. Seeing him growing up and the dominance he had over the breaststroke and being able to watch that first-hand and see a British lad doing that for me growing up was hugely, hugely inspiring.<\/p>\n \u201cProbably both of those guys growing up and there\u2019s lots of other people and lots of other people in different sports as well that I can say but those are probably the headliners.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Next up is a reunion with Popovici at the European Short-Course Championships<\/strong> in Otopeni, Romania.<\/p>\n At Budapest 2022, Popovici became the first man to do the 100-200 free double<\/a> since the very first Worlds, when American\u00a0Jim Montgomery<\/strong>\u00a0pulled the trick in Belgrade in 1973.<\/p>\n At the European Championships<\/strong> in Rome weeks later, the 17-year-old set a 200 textile mark<\/a> and took down Cesar Cielo\u2019s<\/strong> 100 free WR in 46.86<\/a>, slicing 0.05 from the Brazilian\u2019s standard set at the 2009 worlds in the same Foro Italico<\/strong>.<\/p>\n While he didn\u2019t reach those heights at the 2023 World Championships<\/strong> \u2013 finishing fourth in the 200 free and sixth over 100 \u2013 Richards tipped his hat to Popovici who\u2019ll be competing in front of a home crowd at the Otopeni Swimming Complex<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Richards said:<\/p>\n \u201cBeing able to be at the meet (the 2022 European Championships), be at the poolside when David did the 1:42 and did the world record on the 100 free was incredibly to watch and to see someone so young doing that was phenomenal.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve had the pleasure of racing him now several times and I\u2019ve said a few times we are going to be racing each other for many, many years to come I think.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to have some great doozies and head-to-heads yet to come. It\u2019s been incredible to watch.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Matt Richards On Lessons Learned From A Tough 2022 & The Inspiration Of Phelps & Peaty After returning from the World Championships in June 2022, Matt Richards packed up his<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7575,"featured_media":533220,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,122074],"tags":[55080,133435,133248,54676,128885,17020,61180,120003,133089,65435,66654],"class_list":["post-573198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-europe","tag-anna-hopkin","tag-british-swimming-performance-centre","tag-british-swimming-performance-centre-bath","tag-dave-mcnulty","tag-david-popovici","tag-duncan-scott","tag-freya-anderson","tag-matt-richards","tag-millfield","tag-ryan-livingstone","tag-tom-dean"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n![\"Matthew](\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/20230725_ASta_ASZ5693-700x500.jpg\")
\u201cExceptional\u201d Livingstone & Tribute To Fiancee Large<\/h3>\n
![\"emily-large-\"](\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/emily-large-jr-worlds-2017-2932-700x500.jpg\")
Phelps, Peaty & Popovici<\/h3>\n
![\"michael-phelps-disappointed-2012\"](\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/michael-phelps-disappointed-2012-e1489076739461.jpeg\")