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Just over a year ago Adam Peaty was asked the question that would shape the next period of his life.<\/b><\/p>\n
“What do you want to do?” his coach said. Did he want to do it all again?<\/p>\n
“In the moment I wanted to just stop. Stop everything,” Peaty tells BBC Sport.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t even want to see a pool again. I had been beaten down again and again and again.”<\/p>\n
During the previous nine years Peaty had won two Olympic gold medals, becoming the first British swimmer to retain an Olympic title in the process.<\/p>\n
For eight of those years he had been invincible in the pool – a remarkable unbeaten run in the 100m breaststroke where he broke the world record five times – and a star out of it, dancing into the British public’s living room every Saturday night in glitter and sequins.<\/p>\n
In 2022 and 2023, however, everything had been different.<\/p>\n
“It all came crashing down. I came crashing down,” he says.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t take a break after the Olympics in 2021.<\/p>\n
“I went straight into work, did a bit of dancing because I thought it’d be the right distraction and I broke my foot later that year.<\/p>\n
“That led me into 2023 and having a major, major burnout.”<\/p>\n
Peaty’s broken foot meant he missed the 2022 World Championships and went into the Commonwealth Games undercooked.<\/p>\n
There he finished only fourth in the final, his winning run in the 100m over.<\/p>\n
“When I lost that 100m final I spiralled,” he says. “I went quite aggressive. It is an Adam I don’t really recognise.<\/p>\n
“I went to Melbourne [for the short course World Championships four months later] and I blew up there because I didn’t get the result I wanted.<\/p>\n
“I was kind of pointing fingers. I didn’t really have the maturity to kind of get over that. I pretty much lost control of the whole ship.”<\/p>\n
Peaty spoke about problems with depression and alcohol following his victory at the Rio Olympics in 2016.<\/p>\n
Those issues worsened, his relationship with the mother of his son, George, broke down and after continuing to compete in early 2023, he eventually opted to take a break from the sport altogether, citing mental health reasons.<\/p>\n