Filip Nowacki On His Golden Summer & ‘Iconic’ Adam Peaty Ahead Of Senior GB Debut In Poland
In the space of around seven whirlwind weeks in the summer of 2025, Filip Nowacki won four individual world and European junior titles, rattled a senior British standard and broke Adam Peaty’s age group record.
In between the European and world juniors, Nowacki won eight golds among an overall haul of 11 medals representing Jersey at the Island Games.
Filip Nowacki: Photo Courtesy: Istvan Derencsenyi/European Aquatics
It has been an annus mirabilis for the 18-year-old who will make his senior debut for Great Britain at the European Short Course Championships which run from 2-7 December in Lublin, Poland.
Nowacki has been shocked by the rate of his improvement, notably since he moved from Jersey – where he got a fine schooling in the fundamentals by Nathan Jegou – to Millfield and Keiron Piper in the summer of 2024.
In an interview with Swimming World, Nowacki said: “Definitely. I moved to Millfield and I was kind of hoping to improve. I got here and we did less training it was a lot more work smarter than hard I suppose.
“The beginning of last season I was really worried that I wasn’t training enough and that I wasn’t going to see the results that I wanted. The more the season progressed, the better I got.”
Nowacki’s Glittering 2025 In Junior Waters
He made his presence felt at the British Championships in April where he finished second in the 200m breaststroke in 2:11.09 as well as third in the 50 (27.87) and 100 (1:00.28).
Then it was on to the European juniors in Samorin, Slovakia, in the first week of July. The 50 breaststroke was first up with Nowacki taking silver in 27.61 followed a day later by the 200 prelims and semis where he set a European junior record and championship mark of 2:09.11. Twenty-four hours later, the teenager lowered it again to 2:08.32 en-route to the title.
On to the 100 and Nowacki was in record-breaking form again as he claimed gold in 59.59 while going inside Peaty’s age group mark of 59.92 that had stood since 2013.
He left Slovakia with a further two titles in the men’s and mixed medley relays and moved on to Orkney for the Island Games where he completed the breaststroke treble as well as taking individual titles in the butterfly and individual medley.
Shin Ohashi: Photo Courtesy: World Aquatics
The World Junior Championships rolled around in August. Up first was the 100 where he would meet Shin Ohashi, the 16-year-old who’d lowered both the 100 and 200 WJRs a few weeks earlier.
The Japanese led the way in prelims before Nowacki went 59.24 to top the semis and then took gold in 59.20 for another British junior record ahead of Ohashi (59.50) with Max Morgan making it a British 1-3 in 59.93.
The 200 was up next where Nowacki surged to the title in 2:07.32 ahead of Ohashi (2:07.56). It was a EJR and championship mark that saw him go within 0.02 of Ross Murdoch’s British record of 2:07.30 that has stood since the Commonwealth Games in 2014.
It also would have secured him the world title in Singapore which was won by Qin Haiyang in 2:07.41.
And it’s that performance among all his glittering silverware this year that stands out to Nowacki as his most significant accomplishment.
“It was almost unexpected because we kind of threw everything we had at European juniors and really went all in,” he said. “I swam a great time there and swam a massive 2.5/3second PB so I was over the moon and nobody really expected me to get anywhere close to that time again at world juniors.
“Even my coaches and senior coaches on the team were saying if you get another 2:08 high or 2:09 low that’ll be a phenomenal swim, it’ll be a great way to finish your season so it was very unexpected. It was a complete wave of emotion the first couple of hours, even days. You don’t really process something like that until you get back home and it kind of hits.”
Where It All Began
It all began on 1 October 2007 when Nowacki was born in Jersey. He was weeks old when he was introduced to the water but by the time swimming lessons came around, he detested it and would cry and cling to his parents. In time that changed and he grew to love swimming.
He also did triathlon and football and when it came to choosing which sport he’d concentrate on at 14, it was always going to be swimming.
From late 2019 he was coached by Jegou at Tigers SC whom Nowacki credits with imparting many valuable lessons for the young athlete in and out of the water.
“I think he taught me a lot of fundamentals, very basic stuff and building blocks of my stroke and my dive and my pullout,” he said. “We definitely did a lot of hard training and I was fortunate enough to have a great group of guys with me, there were five or six of us that were focused and dialled in. It was a really good, competitive environment that he provided for us and he challenged us day in day out consistently.”
While with Jegou, Nowacki won three medals for Jersey at the 2023 Commonwealth Youth Games as well as 200 silver at the 2024 European juniors.
Nowacki also credits Jegou with pushing him out of his comfort zone and encouraging him to apply for Millfield, the boarding school in south-west England which has numbered the likes of Olympic champions James Guy and Matt Richards among its ranks.
He balances his A Levels in maths, physics and economics with his swimming and while at times it’s challenging, it works well for Nowacki. He’ll take his A Levels in the summer of 2026 shortly before he represents Jersey at the Commonwealth Games and all being well, Great Britain at the European Championships in Paris.
Looking To ‘Iconic’ Peaty
Also planning to be at both events is Adam Peaty who was taking sprint breaststroke into another dimension as Nowacki was growing up.
The pair have competed against each other just once before at the 2024 Olympic trials where Peaty went 57.94 before going on to win silver in Paris. Nowacki, then 16, was seventh in a British age group record of 1:01.46.
Adam Peaty: Photo Courtesy: Aaron Okayama, Speedo
Nowacki, who was eight when Peaty won his first Olympic title at Rio 2016, said: “I think he’s a huge inspiration to anyone in the country, not just breaststroking. Growing up and wanting to be like him because he is this iconic figure who has multiple world records. So definitely a huge inspiration to most kids around the world.”
With a nod to Peaty’s achievements, he added: “I think he has definitely moved the sport on quite a lot – first person under 58 and still the only one under 57. Typically in sport, and especially in athletics, if a person dips below a barrier a second person dips below, then a third person, and all of a sudden over a couple of years there’s 50, 100 people dipping below the barrier so I think he has really done a lot for the sport and really moved it on.”
Eyes On His GB Debut On Senior Waters
Nowacki was named Emerging Athlete of the Year at the recent Aquatics GB Awards and now he is set to make his senior bow in international waters.
Awaiting are the likes of Olympic champion Nicolo Martinenghi, double Olympic silver medallist Arno Kamminga and Caspar Corbeau – who set a 200 s/c WR of 1:59.52 at the World Cup – and Melvin Imoudu, who was fourth in Paris.
“I think this is a perfect opportunity for me to learn and almost be stretched out of my comfort zone,” he said. “I’ve been on junior teams before: it’s like I’m used to the dynamic of how they work and going into this summer I knew what to expect and how things would work.
“Going into a senior competition everything’s new, I don’t have my friends, my typical roommate, it’s all very different so I think it’s definitely going to be a challenge. But I feel like it’s going to be a challenge in a good way and I’m up for it so I’m looking forward to it a lot.”