Double Paralympic sprint champion Jonnie Peacock believes he has underperformed over his career in terms of the times he has run.
The 29-year-old Briton won gold in the T44 100m at London 2012 and went on to retain his title in Rio in 2016.
He also took individual joint bronze and relay silver in Tokyo in 2021 to add to his world and European titles.
“One thing that I always look back on is that I’ve never run what I should have run,” he told BBC Sport.
“I’ve got the medals and I’ve always achieved what I should have in terms of placements, but I’ve never achieved what I’m really capable of in terms of times.
“I’ve never put a time down where I’ve said ‘Yeah, that was quick’.”
The current world record in Peacock’s T64 amputee category is the 10.61 seconds set by American Richard Browne at the World Championships in Doha in 2015.
Peacock’s personal best remains 10.64 from the heats of the 100m at the World Championships in London in 2017, but he even has an element of regret about that performance.
“It was a cool day and I slowed down at 80 metres, which I am still really annoyed about because if I had run 100%, it would have been a 10.4 run,” he said.
“When it came to the final, I cramped up and ran 10.75, which wasn’t great, although I won.
“I feel the event is moving on in terms of the number of athletes with medal potential, but not necessarily with those one-off performances.
“We’ve been seeing times of around 10.6 from 2013 onwards but from day one I’ve said sub-10.5 is quick and there are three or four of us who are capable of that.”
Since his gold medal at London 2012, where famously as a teenager he had to silence the 70,000 crowd before storming to victory, Peacock has become one of Britain’s best-known sporting figures.
He also showed his prowess off the track in Strictly Come Dancing in 2017, becoming the first Paralympian to appear on the show and making it though nine weeks of competition with dance partner Oti Mabuse before being eliminated.
After missing the 2019 Para-athletics World Championships with a knee injury, he will be hoping to make an impact at this year’s Worlds which take place in Paris from 8-17 July – a little more than a year before the city hosts the next Paralympic Games.
Peacock is still working with long-time coach Dan Pfaff but since the start of the year has also had day-to-day input from Benke Blomkvist at Loughborough University, which he is hoping will pay dividends in the build-up to 2024.
“That has been a big change for me this season, so we are expecting to see some good improvements from that,” he said.
“For the two years before Tokyo I was in Leicester training by myself, jumping a fence to start at whatever time I woke up.
“It probably wasn’t as elite as it should have been, so I now have consistency and accountability and someone to keep me in line on those days where I am struggling to keep myself in line.
“Tokyo was good fun, although it wasn’t a great Games for me personally, but it has restarted the fire and I have been working hard training and trying to re-find what made me run fast in the first place and redo it.
“I think whatever I do this year, next year is going to be be better because I feel like I’m only just starting to see the improvements I want to see.
“We do a really easy event. There isn’t much to it. If you run fast, you are pretty confident. There’s not too much you need to think about it. It’s a time, it’s a number.
“I know the stats at the end of the day and am pretty good at looking at all the stuff and working it out. I just need to run a fast time.”
