Adam Peaty: ‘Society does not have the answers

Adam Peaty once said he feels like “a god” in the swimming pool.

But that is a sentiment one of Britain’s most successful Olympians is unlikely to repeat now after discovering the “peace” brought by dedication to God and church.

Peaty has plumbed the depths of his soul, last year walking away from the pool to deal with problems stemming from poor mental health and alcohol abuse. He was also diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

His coach Mel Marshall got him back in the water, “just to literally paddle” at first, but it appears his relationship with God is what has helped him return to competition.

There was no epiphany per se, but a serendipitous meeting at a church in Nottingham.

“I was in Australia and I was talking to some of the swimmers out there and some of them have Bible study and reach out to Pastor Ashley,” Peaty says from his training camp in Turkey.

“He’s from Berlin, but he works the Olympic Games and he follows the World Aquatics and he’s there for people, for anyone who wants to reach out because [in] sport you can reach the highest of highs but also the lowest lows and [it’s about] how you find balance in that.

“I literally said ‘do you want to want to catch up when I was back in England?’ because it was only an hour and a half flight and he said yes. He does some library theology work in London. And he goes ‘We’ll go to this church in Nottingham’ and I’ve been there ever since because the first service was about the Olympics.

“No one even knew I was coming, I was just at the back and I was like, ‘If this isn’t meant for me, then I don’t know what is’ because I don’t think society has the answers, especially as a young man, the answers I’m seeking.

“Nothing even to do with being an athlete. I don’t rely on that to be a good athlete. I rely on church and the people in the community to be a good person, which is still very, very hard. It’s still changing slowly.”

Peaty has a tattoo on his solar plexus that reads “Into the light”, a recognition that there was plenty of darkness to step out of.

It is not all behind him, though.

“Some of the most evil stuff could still be ahead of me, some of the stuff that breaks people, even the strongest people,” Peaty added.

“So it’d be very naive of me to say that ‘I have got a structure in place and it’s going to fix everything’, because we know the world is a very unpredictable place. All we can do is prepare and hopefully smile in the face of adversity.

“I know some of the worst things I ever fear could still be out there. That’s obviously friends and family and their health, especially when you have children, your brain works completely differently and becomes more about protection.

“I’ve got a structure in place for the minor stuff, but the major stuff, who knows? It’s a very dark place sometimes the world, and you’ve just got to make sure that you’ve got the right people around you.

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“I’ve definitely got the structure but I don’t know what’s ahead of me.”

In the short term, what is ahead of him is a third Olympic Games. Peaty already has five medals from Rio and Tokyo, a tally he is expected to add to in the event he has dominated for nearly a decade.

Since first breaking the 100m breaststroke world record in 2015, Peaty has gone faster than that 57.92 a total of 19 times. The rest of the world put together have only managed it six times. All top 10 swims of all-time belong to Peaty. It is hard to imagine a more dominant swimmer – and yet he insists he is getting better.

“I’m 100 per cent progressing the fastest I ever have because I’m thinking every single day of every single per cent, the half per cent, the point one per cent of where I can get the edges now,” Peaty added.

“For example, at trials, that was my second-fastest time I’ve ever done to 50 metres in the final. And I’d always really struggled to do that in trials, or even at a championship. So to get that front-end speed that I’ve got right now, it’s just looking very promising. But just because I’ve got that, [it doesn’t mean] I’m going to equal this extremely fast time in the Olympics.

“You could wake up on the wrong side of the bed and it just doesn’t work and that is sport.”

And if he doesn’t win those medals, is the juice worth the squeeze? That’s the question that Peaty will use as his yardstick as he decides whether – as he will have to at some point – to stop swimming competitively.

“If I look at all the receipts of the hard work I’ve done – the sets, the sacrifices, these choices – is that worth the result I get at the Olympic Games, and then it becomes a decision of ‘Okay, is my family willing to support that personally?’

“As I get a little bit older, it’s got to become a more a family decision, because [professional sport] is an incredibly selfish place to be.”