It was on the advice of one of his rivals that Joe Litchfield made an 11th hour switch to his programme for the British Championships and ended up qualifying for his second Olympics.

The 25-year-old from Pontefract was eyeing the 200m individual medley when Duncan Scott - the silver medallist in that discipline in Tokyo - advised Litchfield to try the 100m butterfly at the Olympic trials in London in April.

“I don’t think he was trying to eliminate the competition,” laughs Litchfield, “not a chance, but after I’d swum it at a meet in Edinburgh three weeks earlier, he came up to me and said ‘you should give that a go at trials’.

“The 100m fly clashed with the 200m IM but there’s not just Duncan in that race but Tom Dean as well, so I’d have to do something pretty special to even get a sniff at qualification. So with my coach we decided let’s have a go at the 100m fly and it’s worked out pretty well.”

Surprise to everyone: Joe Litchfield of Loughborough PC reacts after winning the Men's 100m Butterfly final during day four of the British Swimming Championships 2024 to book his place at the Olympics (Picture: Alex Pantling/Getty Images)

It certainly did as Litchfield touched the wall first at the British Championships.

“Winning the 100m butterfly was a complete shock to me and the whole British team,” admits Litchfield. “I only entered it as a hail mary, and then ended up going really well.

“I got told when I was getting my medal ‘you’re going to the Olympics’ so it was pretty surreal. That pressure gets taken off your shoulders and suddenly you know everything you’ve been working towards all season has been worth it and it’s only going to get better.”

So Joe, who learned to swim first at Askern Spa, then Doncaster Dartes, City of Sheffield and now at Loughborough, joins older brother and 400m individual medley world championship silver medallist Max at an Olympics for a second time.

Joe Litchfield swimming at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham (Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

“It’s great having Max there,” says Litchfield. “Him qualifying a couple of days before me at the trials was a kick up the backside for me to get myself on the team.

“For two brothers to both be good at a sport is something special.”

Joe has learned lessons from an indifferent first Olympic experience that should serve him well in Paris.

“I ended up doing a lot of prep for an event I didn’t end up racing and it messed up my prep for the 200m IM,” he recalls. “I’d also invested in a lot of other meets and I got to the Olympics and I was drained.

“Maybe it was nerves and inexperience, but we just got a little bit of something wrong.

“Hopefully we’ve learned from that this year and can take that experience into these Olympics and use it as a positive.”

Joe Litchfield reveals how Duncan Scott helped send him to Paris Olympics