Adam Peaty's grandmother the new star of social media
Mavis Williams - "proud nan to a world champion breaststroker" melting hearts on Twitter after Briton's record-breaking 100m breaststroke swim
Great Britain swimmer Adam Peaty's biggest fan is his nan Mavis Williams (Photo: Getty Images/Adam Pretty)
Every athlete should have a fan as devoted as #OlympicNan. The grandmother of British swimmer Adam Peaty has become a champion tweeter as she gushes about his achievements.
With a Twitter biography that describes herself as "Proud Nan to a World Champion Breaststroker," Mavis Williams, 74, is gaining followers who use the word "adorable" to describe her passion for Peaty.
After he broke the world record in the 100m breaststroke in Saturday's heats, Mavis tweeted:
Mrs Williams, who is from Uttoxeter, a town of 14,000 about 120 miles (200km) north-west of London, said she was introduced to Twitter by her daughter, Caroline, Adam's mother. Her only goal was to get more followers than Caroline.
"You don't go out as much as you do when you were younger, now do you?" she told The Associated Press on Sunday. "It's given me a new interest and kept my brain working."
Mavis and a mascot called Ray (Twitter)
Mrs Williams has, with a few hundred tweets and retweets, managed to capture attention with a simple chronicle of Peaty's Olympic journey from her perspective. There's the buildup to Rio. There's a picture of her at this year's aquatics championships at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park next to some sort of mascot creature named Ray.
Adam Peaty on his way to breaking the men's 100m breaststroke on Day 1 at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium (Photo: Getty Images/Adam Pretty)
There's a picture of her beloved Adam in his Olympic uniform.
There's even a thank you to the person who helped decorate her home in preparation for the Games:
Mostly, she's so proud she's bursting. She thinks her tweets help Adam and the team — just to let them know their fans are pulling for them from far away.
But her chronicle is also a reminder that those behind the athletes are sometimes on as much of a journey as the competitors themselves. And no matter how many followers she gets, when her friendly competition with Caroline is over, she plans to send out a thank-you tweet to all the people who decided to follow her. They've taught her a lot, after all. "I think it's nice to thank someone — even if it is just a tweet," she said.
