PARIS (Reuters) – Adam Peaty had been burned out and broken, no longer in love with swimming and on the verge of quitting, but the Olympic breaststroke great now has a renewed hunger for success.
Just over a year ago the Briton baulked at battering mind and body into submission for something he felt was not worth the price.
The triple Olympic gold medallist’s self-destructive intensity had led him to drink before he fought his way back through faith and with the help of those closest to him.
In Paris the 29-year-old 100 metres world record holder hopes to emulate retired American great Michael Phelps, the only swimmer to win gold in the same event at three successive Games.
“People have mental health issues for various reasons. Mine were pretty much through exhaustion in sport and trying to achieve a goal that didn’t really exist,” he explained last month.
“I like performing and I like to show people it’s OK to have a bad month or a bad swim or a bad year or quarter that you’re ashamed of at times and you can turn the boat around no matter how big or daunting that task is.
“That’s the journey I’m on now. I’m enjoying it.”
Peaty’s record of 56.88 seconds was set in 2019 and he remains the only man to go below 57.
At the World Championships in Qatar in February he took only bronze behind American winner Nic Fink and Italian runner-up Nicolo Martinenghi but he feels no pressure as he seeks to extend his rule in the pool.
A talismanic figure for his teammates in the past, the big man’s early gold has got the party going at the last two Games and he has heats and semi-final on Saturday before Sunday’s final.
“It’s always great when you do go to a major meet and his event’s first and he gets that gold under his belt and it’s like ‘OK, now we’re off’,” teammate and fellow champion Tom Dean said last year.
“At the Tokyo Olympics he got that gold early doors and then it became ‘Right, now I want to have a go, now someone else wants to have a go, now everyone else wants to get medals’.”
Britain’s most medalled Olympic swimmer Duncan Scott felt the eight times world champion deserved more credit.
“I’ve got a couple of silver and bronzes at world level. He’s got an array of golds scattered across so many different years,” he said. “I don’t think we can compare each other at all, but he’s someone I love looking up to.”
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, Editing by Hugh Lawson)
