Team Great Britain on a mission

We are in Belo Horizonte in south-eastern Brazil but the surroundings, where Team Great Britain have their Olympic preparation camp, are designed to make gold-medal favourites like Peaty feel at home.

Posters branded with Team GB’s slogan ‘Bring On The Great’ are everywhere and even the entrance to the doping control room has a Union flag doormat. 

Inside the performance gym 100 metres breaststroke world record-holder Peaty looks in supreme physical condition as he does press-ups.

Upstairs in the only indoor 50m pool in Brazil outside Rio de Janiero, Fran Halsall, who is preparing for her third Olympics, laughs as she tries to work an underwater filming device to record her stroke. 

A local volunteer charged with minimising germs is spraying the TV remote control with disinfectant, leaving nothing to chance. ‘In London it was incredibly easy, you know how everything works and speak the language,’ says Paul Ford, who as head of pre-Games training has been here to prepare for this fortnight 18 times in the past five years. ‘It’s very different at an away Games,’ he adds.