Just over a year ago Adam Peaty was asked the question that would shape the next period of his life.
“What do you want to do?” his coach said. Did he want to do it all again?
“In the moment I wanted to just stop. Stop everything,” Peaty tells BBC Sport.
“I didn’t even want to see a pool again. I had been beaten down again and again and again.”
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.
For eight of those years had 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 it, dancing into the British public’s living room every Saturday night in glitter and sequins.
In 2022 and 2023, however, everything had been different.
“It all came crashing down. I came crashing down,” he says.
“I didn’t take a break after the Olympics in 2021.
“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.
“That led me into 2023 and having a major, major burnout.”
Peaty’s broken foot meant he missed the 2022 World Championships and went into the Commonwealth Games undercooked.
There he finished only fourth in the final, his winning run in the 100m over.
“When I lost that 100m final I spiralled,” he says. “I went quite aggressive. It is an Adam I don’t really recognise.
“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.
“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.”
Peaty spoke about problems with depression and alcohol following his victory at the Rio Olympics in 2016.
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.
He said publicly he was in a “self-destructive spiral”.
“At my lowest I was in a place that I couldn’t even look at my myself in the mirror – couldn’t even process what I wanted to do in a day,” he says.
“Everything seemed grey. There was no colour, no optimism, no healthy relationship with the people that want you to be better.”
A year on from those darkest days, Peaty is speaking having returned and secured a chance to go for a third Olympic gold in a row in Paris.
He remains unremittingly open in front of the cameras, as a man who has been the face of the sport for more than a decade.
He is calm and measured until he tries to put a finger on the factors in that spiral beginning.
“When you have your first child that disrupts the natural flow,” says Peaty, whose son was born in September 2022.
“When George came, I absolutely think the world of that kid, he’s just a halo in my life…”
It’s at that moment the showman’s mask slips. The chin wobbles before the tears flow.
“People don’t understand the sacrifice – the choices have to make just for winning Olympic gold,” he explains.
“If my little boy has got a sniffle I can’t afford to take the risk if it’s going to cost me 0.1 or 0.2 seconds because I know that that victory will be worth it if he understands, and one day he will.”
Peaty has a lion tattooed on his arm along with the Olympic rings but these days he has a cross on his abdomen. Another hangs from a gold chain around his neck.
He says re-finding his Christian faith helped him emerge from his mental health problems, along with gardening and writing in a journal – all things he says has helped him find a better mental place.
“I could have easily said ‘we have got all of the Olympic golds we wanted’,” Peaty says.
“I never feared losing but knew I always feared regret.
“I owed it to myself to show I could get back and in a healthy manner.”
In his absence, China’s Qin Haiyang has been on a Peaty-esque run.
He won the 50m, 100m and 200m events at the 2023 World Championships and set a new personal best of 57.69 seconds in the 100m to become the second fastest man in history behind Peaty.
“I don’t think it was until I saw the World Championships in Fukuoka without me in the breaststroke events, seeing Qin doing some really good times, that a flame ignited that had long gone out,” Peaty says.
Peaty returned to the global stage at the World Championships this year where he had to settle for bronze in an encouraging performance but one significantly slower than his best.
If that led to a boost in Qin’s hopes, Peaty’s victory at the British trials in April, a title won in 57.94 seconds – only just over a second outside the Briton’s own world record from 2019 – will have sent a shockwave out east.
“I never like to say it because people say it’s arrogant, but people would think I’m dumb if I didn’t say I was going there for my triple,” Peaty says of his Olympic hopes.
“I would never cry on TV before. Emotion is only a strength. The best athletes know how to and when to use that.”
The first coming of Peaty was good, the second great.
This is Adam Peaty 3.0 and he is not done yet.
