Nick Westby: Time to raise the roof for Britain's proud, unassuming sporting greats

Around the same time, Yorkshire’s Hannah Cockroft was hurtling down the home straight at London’s Olympic Stadium to claim three gold medals at the World Para-Athletics Championships, taking her tally to 10 global titles and extending a remarkable sequence of never being beaten in the final of a major competition. All this, and she only turned 25 yesterday.

And then last week, Adam Peaty swam his way into the record books with a succession of world records and two more global titles as he won the 50m and 100m breaststroke events at the World Swimming Championships in Budapest.

The statistic about him owning the 10 fastest 100m breaststroke times in history is a staggering acknowledgment of the levels of domination this young man from Uttoxeter has enjoyed over the last 12 months or so.

The 100m breaststroke may be one of the most basic of skills, but that brings with it the understanding that it is also one of the greatest yardsticks in sport; like the 100m sprint being the race to determine the fastest man on earth. There is nothing purer.

Peaty has mastered that basic art more times than anyone. One could argue he is the fastest swimmer of all time.

In the very least, Adam Peaty is Britain’s Michael Phelps. He may not win as many Olympic medals as the most decorated swimmer of all time, but that would come down to the fact that he will not enter as many events.

For pure speed, and the way he has taken his event to new levels over the last two major meets, Peaty has raised the bar, something which in turn will create a greater challenge from the rivals he is currently leaving in his wake.

Similarly, Cockroft has taken wheelchair sprinting to heights never scaled before, though five years on from her delivering on her promise at the London 2012 Paralympics, the rest of the world is still nowhere close to catching up.

Froome is a little more reliant on team-mates to achieve his feats but that should not take away from what he has accomplished on the gruelling three-week odyssey through France these last few years.

From being the upstart who nearly gatecrashed Sir Bradley Wiggins’s historic Tour de France win in 2012, Froome is suddenly one yellow jersey away from equalling the most amount of Tour wins in history.

If all this is a little bit gushing, then it is meant to be.

Because while Froome, Peaty and Cockroft could all lay claim to being Britain’s most dominant sporting star, they could also boast to being the nation’s most under-appreciated.

Froome, in particular, certainly has a case.

Last December, he was not even included on an expanded, 16-strong longlist for the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year, and this after a Tour de France in which he ran up Mont Ventoux in his cleats after crashing off his bike, such was his determination not to lose priceless seconds to any of his rivals on one of cycling’s most famous ascents.

Whether it is because he lives in Monaco, was born in Kenya or lacks the on-screen panache of Wiggins or Mark Cavendish, Froome has never managed to capture the nation’s hearts.

Not that he has ever courted it, but from first-hand experience having interviewed him as the defending champion on the eve of the 2014 Tour de France here in Yorkshire, a more gracious, amenable, quietly driven sporting great you are unlikely to find.

If Froome is sub-consciously punished for a perceived lack of a gregarious personality, then Cockroft ticks that box with a permanent marker.

‘Hurricane Hannah’ is one of the bubbliest sports people around. She is the ultimate role model for disabled sports, yet sadly the last two words of that statement represent a glass ceiling that may forever hold her back.

Cockroft is widely applauded and appreciated but as she even admitted in the wake of her latest extraordinary feats in London, a lack of competitive action in the next two years may see her light fade from the public conscience once more.

Even if it does, she can be rightly proud of her standing in British sport, one that is similar to that of her fellow Yorkshirewoman, Nicola Adams, a pioneer for women in boxing, and just as dominant.

Where Froome in particular has struggled to gain widespread admiration, Peaty may finally have done so in Budapest this past week.

He has his Nan to thank for that, the trusty family member interviewed by serious newscasters which serve to humanise this human torpedo and transport him from the back pages, onto the front.

If the BBC Sports Personality shortlist is any barometer, then Peaty has already got a leg up on Froome as he was included in last year’s longlist where the cyclist was overlooked, possibly because his gold medal in Rio was the example of a Briton breaking new ground in a sport we had long been second-best in – an argument we used to trot out about cycling up to five years ago.

On his return from Budapest this week, it will be interesting to see for how long Peaty is lauded, and how quickly he is forgotton. The football season kicks off in five days after all.

Together the trio are examples of what the British sporting system can create, through investment, talented coaches and programmes garnered to harness and develop grass-roots talent.

Perhaps they are victims of that system, in that Britain in the early part of the 21st century – with two decades of Lottery funding behind it – has now become a regular producer of world-leading athletes.

To the names of Froome, Cockroft and Peaty, add those of Adams, Alistair Brownlee, Mo Farah and Andy Murray, serial winners of their sport’s biggest prizes.

Maybe that is why they have not received the garlands in their bucketloads where others have, because of the competition within Britain’s sporting ranks for the public’s affections.

But whether you like their sport or not, respond positively to their personality or not, these sporting greats should be cherished and appreciated at every opportunity.