Adam Peaty: “I have to find balance and bring out that nasty guy in me.”
Over the course of several chats with Olympics.com at the swimming World Championships Doha 2024, the three-time Olympic gold medallist spoke about his ‘bittersweet’ feeling after his first Worlds since 2019, and the difficulty of finding the right amount of aggression.
Can positive life change be detrimental to athletic performance?
That is the major question Adam Peaty was pondering following his performances at the Doha 2024 World Aquatics Championships.
Swimming at the Worlds for the first time since 2019, the British three-time Olympic champion shocked himself early in the Qatari capital, earning the top seed for the 100m breaststroke final.
"Not at all (did I expect this). I think after the heats, I was like okay, I know what I'm working with and what I'm capable of,” he told Olympics.com after the semi-finals.
"Tonight was just about going out there, showing a little bit of Adam Peaty on the front end, getting a little bit angry with myself like I normally do – it's a complex relationship with myself – and tonight I showed I can still get it done on the back end when I need to."
In the final, the world record holder got off to a good start, and was closing the gap on race leader, Nic Fink, inch by inch.
But Peaty’s lack of competition time over the past year started to show in the final stretch, and he took for bronze after being overhauled by 2022 world champion Nicolo Martinenghi, with American Fink taking gold.
On paper, it was a good start for Peaty, given everything he had been through over the past Olympic cycle.
But for a world record holder and three-time world champion in the event, who is always his own strongest critic, winning bronze was a strange feeling.
"It's bittersweet. There isn't enough in the skill bank just yet to get the results I want under pressure," he said afterwards.
"It's something we're going to have to identify as a team. We're going to need a lot more training and a lot more perseverance on the skills because I am losing out margins. The swimming speed is fine. Over the next five months I know that's only going to improve, and that's my thing, but the skills are just not good enough at this moment.
"We didn't come here for medals. That's just not the target coming off a hard bank of work. Last night's performance gave me a little glimmer of hope that I would go faster than I did today, and maybe I would have if I had executed those skills but I exposed myself in an arena that I haven't been in in a while, for a final in a world championships.
"So I'm disappointed in that essence, but I've also got to make sure I don't wear it, because it has been a long time since I've been in this, and the next five months are going to really define who I am as an athlete.
"You've still got to enjoy it, but the extreme competitor in me is never going to be happy with bronze. I wasn't even happy with gold back in the day, so you've got to get that balance of thought right and my happiness now in this sport comes from knowing that I couldn't have done anything more, and tonight I knew that I could have done something more, which has left me quite annoyed.
"But maybe getting the exact performance that I wanted out there would have been just as dangerous as not getting what I wanted because this is going to push me and now I know that I really need to hone in on these skills. Sometimes you have to have a wake up call and today was a nice wake up call."
It was a measured analysis of his own performance, but it was clear that Peaty was still finding the optimal mindset that would equally give him the best chance of winning while not getting lost as an individual in the sport again.
He wouldn’t have to wait for long to put those things right, with the 50m breaststroke heats and semi-final taking place the next day.
As the world record holder and a three-time world champion in this event as well, there would always be high expectations, but things did not go according to plan.
Competing in his fifth race in three days, the Uttoxeter man only just qualified for the semi-finals as the 12th fastest finisher in the heats, ‘feeling really, really tired’.
He managed to find his rhythm in the semis to progress to the final as the fourth fastest man overall, and attributed his new-found faith with being able to keep a level head despite his mixed results.
“A verse I read today was ‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it’, and that’s the same with positivity in sport in that even if you feel you’re not getting the results for a long time, which I hadn’t been. There’s still a little bit of positivity that you have to cling on to,” he said after the 50m semi-finals.
“Going into tonight I was like, ‘You know what, I’m in twelfth, I’ve got to really shift and put a marker down now, and I’m in fourth for tomorrow in a very stacked field so I feel like I lived testament to that verse today.
“It was good but very strange (getting back to competition rhythm). I was feeling really tired and almost got caught out in the heats, and managing everything around the competition as well like anti-doping, the swim down, and press.”
But these principles would be put to the test again in the final, where after an uncharacteristically slow start, Peaty finished in fourth position and cut a visibly frustrated figure poolside.
There was to be a positive end for the breaststroke GOAT’s 2024 World Championships, however, when he helped Team GB land bronze in the mixed 4x100m medley relay.
Despite taking home two bronze medals and some vital major international racing experience to expedite his comeback, it’s clear that Peaty left the Qatari capital with almost as many questions as he had answers regarding his current level.
One thing that was clear, however, was his desire to win, and use any lessons in Doha to help him make history at Paris 2024 as the first man to win three-consecutive men’s Olympic 100m breaststroke titles.
“I have to find balance and bring out that nasty guy in me. He’s very, very nasty and he gets the job done. So it’s going to be about how do I get that guy who wins medals out because he was missing for the 100 metre final - a bit too peaceful.
“So these learnings will help me for the rest of my life, as I’m still an athlete and you have to learn how to find balance in life as you’ve still got to be aggressive. It’s a bit complex and maybe I’ll talk about it one day. I’m a bit of a different man, but I’ve got to bring out that other guy too.”