n Ford's Focus with Daniel Ford

If I was to say the name Ben Proud to you I can say with a fair degree of confidence that the majority of your responses would be “who?”.

As you know I like to shine a light on some of this country’s lesserknown sporting superstars, so here is a little profile on perhaps Britain’s most successful athlete that no one has heard of.

In 2022 Ben Proud won the following titles: the World Championship; the European Championships and the Commonwealth Games. The gold medal at the Commonwealths was his fifth in total, his gold at the European Championships was his third that he has won, his gold at the Worlds marked his second triumph. So, as you can tell he is pretty good. These medals were all won in the swimming pool. In fact, Ben Proud is technically the fastest man in water given that he won the world title in the 50 metres freestyle. It is effectively the equivalent of a British man winning 100m gold at the athletics World Championships, imagine the publicity that would get! Moreover, to make this achievement more impressive he became the first British man in history to win the 50 metre freestyle world championship.

When it comes to his lack of popularity I think there are a number of factors that contribute to it. Firstly, Proud does not have a big personality, he isn’t the dynamic character that fellow swimmer Adam Peaty is and tends to be quite introverted in his nature. Secondly, I think that in this country in order to become a national name as a swimmer you need either to completely dominate your event which Proud has ultimately not done or you need to win an Olympic medal which is also something he has failed to do. He is the sort of character that is under appreciated in every sport, that one consistent performer who always delivers a solid effort and is there to pick up the pieces if the bigger names do not deliver.

To be the best in the world at what you do is an utterly remarkable achievement, I really hope that as Ben Proud nears the end of his career which may well culminate in Paris 2024 that he wins that Olympic medal which will thrust him into the limelight. I think what this also shows though is the work that swimming needs to do to recapture the imagination of the public, the sport needs more big characters to ignite public interest, the sport needs more iconic rivalries to ignite between competitors. Having said all that his still doesn’t mean we shouldn’t appreciate the quiet man stood at the bag of the holding room earphones on totally in the zone, because that man is the fastest swimmer on the planet.