Yes I realised (slightly too late) it was the slightly more expensive one, but my point (not very well made) was that you could get the same result with a lens costing less than £100. Cheers :)

Actually the smaller the depth of field, the harder it is and the more skill is required to properly nail the focus like this. Especially when the subject is moving as fast as Peaty. If you had a greater depth of field, you could argue it would be easier to make sure the important bits of the shot would be sharp. Also, if you look at the shot info, you can see that he got the shot with a 50mm lens at F2. The Canon 50mm 1.8 lens is one of the cheapest you can buy for your DSLR, and a very good one. So you don't need to spend mega bucks to get the shot.