Adrian Moorhouse

Adrian David Moorhouse MBE (born 24 May 1964) is an English former competitive swimmer who dominated British swimming in the late 1980s.

In 1980 he was selected for the England Junior team and broke the national junior records for both the 100 m and 200 m breaststroke.

When he was 15, he was chosen for the national senior squad, number two to the gold medallist at the Moscow Olympics, Duncan Goodhew.

(It is worth noting that the FINA World Championships were moved from a four-year cycle to a two-year cycle a decade later. Had that been the case in the late 1980s, then Moorhouse may well have won two world titles given that he was ranked first in the world for the five-year period from 1986 to 1990.)

In the late 1980s, Adrian Moorhouse was one of Britain's most successful sportspeople, finishing as runner-up in the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year contest in 1988 following his Olympic win.

Moorhouse became Britain's number one breaststroke swimmer in 1981 when he won a bronze medal for the 200 m in the European Championships in Yugoslavia.

The following year he gained his first taste of gold after winning the 100 m breaststroke at the Commonwealth Games in Australia, in a new British Record of 1:02.93, along with a bronze in the 200m breaststroke.

The following year he was back to winning ways taking gold in the 200m breaststroke at the 1983 European Championships in Rome together with a silver in the 100m.

In the World Championships in Guayaquil shortly before, he missed bronze by just 2/100th of a second in the 100m breaststroke behind (future) 1984 Olympic Champions Steve Lundquist (USA) and Victor Davis (CAN), and future world record holder John Moffet (USA).

At the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, Moorhouse was tipped for a gold medal in the 100 m breaststroke but missed out completely, coming fourth behind Steve Lundquist of the USA who won gold in a new world record of 1:01.65 swimming in the adjacent lane.

"I was devastated", he says.

"After the Games I convinced myself that I had no talent and that I was never going to win again. I didn't want anything to do with swimming.”

On New Year's Eve 1984, Moorhouse stayed home alone to reflect and decided to train for a competition in April 1985 as a 'last roll of the dice' to see whether he had what it took to conquer the world.

His decision was vindicated when he broke the World Short Course (25 m pool) record for the 100 m in a time of 1:00.58, and went on to win the European Championships gold medal in Bulgaria in a time of 1:02.99.

Notably, he broke the record set by Steve Lundquist in the 1984 Olympics, in the lane adjacent to Moorhouse, adding extra significance to his achievement.

In the final, he secured his hat-trick of European golds in this event, winning in 1:01.71.

The year 1986 was a bittersweet one for Moorhouse.

At the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, he narrowly took silver in the 100m breaststroke behind long-time rival Victor Davis of Canada.

However, he put his disappointment behind him to turn the tables on Davis in the 200m breaststroke a few days later, an event in which the Canadian had been heavily favoured as the reigning Olympic Champion and world record holder.

Overtaking Davis in the second half of the race, Moorhouse took gold in a personal best and new English record of 2:16.35.

A month later in Madrid, Moorhouse qualified fastest for the 100m breaststroke final at the World Championships in a new European record of 1:02.28.

In the final, he powered to the front in the second 50m to beat Victor Davis convincingly and win the race in another European record of 1:02.01.

However, he was then controversially disqualified for an alleged dolphin kick at the turn, promoting Davis to gold.

In 1987, putting the Madrid episode behind him, Moorhouse set a world short-course record, in a competition in Bonn, by becoming the first person to swim 100 m breaststroke in less than a minute, out-swimming the former world record holder, Rolf Beab in a time of 59.75 s. Later that year, at the European Championships in Strasbourg, Moorhouse retained his 100m title in a new European record of 1:02.13, before taking bronze in the 200m breaststroke in a personal best of 2:15.78 for good measure.

He won the gold medal in the 100-metre breaststroke at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, Korea.

Since then Moorhouse, a former pupil of Bradford Grammar School, has translated his sporting success to a successful career in the business world, as managing director of Lane4, a consultancy helping individuals and teams around the world reach their fullest potential.

Moorhouse started Olympic year, 1988, on the right note by winning the 100 m breaststroke at the US Indoor Championships to confirm his status as number one in the world.

Having finally achieved his Olympic dream, Moorhouse entered 1989 with an aura of invincibility.

In the heats of the 100m breaststroke at the European Championships in Bonn, he achieved another lifetime's ambition when he set a new world record of 1:01.49.

In 1990, he equaled his own 100m breaststroke world record of 1:01.49 twice: first, to win gold at the Commonwealth Games in Auckland; and second, in the summer's British Championships at a time when the World Championships had initially been scheduled.

However, due to the host city Perth (AUS) being in the Southern Hemisphere, the World Championships were postponed until January 1991 to coincide with summer.

Here, Moorhouse swam another fantastic time of 1:01.58 but had to settle for silver behind a new world record and breakthrough performance from Hungary's Norbert Rózsa.

Later in 1991, he again took silver behind Norbert Rózsa in the European Championships in Athens in a time of 1:01.89, his final major medal and his fifth consecutive podium placing in this event.

The following year, he qualified for the final of the 100m breaststroke at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, but faded in the final to finish 8th to draw the curtain on his illustrious career.

(FINA, swimming's world governing body, changed the breaststroke rules in 2005 to permit a single dolphin kick at the start and turn in recognition of the fact that this is often an unintended and involuntary reaction to the underwater pullout. ) Despite his natural disappointment, though, Moorhouse finished the year ranked first in the world for the 100m breaststroke for the first time, a position he retained for the next four years.

He was voted Best Leader at the Sunday Times Best Small Companies to Work for in 2009 and 2007 and has been listed in HR Magazine's Most Influential UK Thinkers since 2010.

He is also a swimming commentator for BBC television.

Moorhouse was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, attended Bradford Grammar School and went to 4th Shipley Scouts.

Moorhouse's inspiration to become seriously involved in national and international competitive swimming came at the age of 12 when he watched David Wilkie win gold at the Montreal Olympics.

In September he achieved a lifetime's ambition at Seoul when, following in the footsteps of David Wilkie and Duncan Goodhew, he won Olympic gold in the 100 m breaststroke in a time of 1:02.04, overtaking Dmitry Volkov (URS) and Károly Güttler (HUN) at the wall, in a characteristic finishing surge, to win by 1/100th of a second in the closest race of those Olympics.