Following his surprising withdrawal from last week’s British Swimming Championships in Sheffield, Adam Peaty wasted no time in getting back to work with an eye on the 2024 Olympic Games.
Peaty, who dropped out of the selection meet for this summer’s World Championships for mental health reasons, is currently in Spain training under Ben Titley, the former coach of Swimming Canada’s High Performance Centre in Toronto who now runs the Sant Cugat National Training Centre in Barcelona.
The news was first reported by Best Swimming‘s Alex Pussieldi, and has been confirmed with Peaty posting an image of the Sant Cugat pool on his Instagram story.
Pussieldi reports that Peaty took the opportunity in part due to the fact that his head coach, Mel Marshall, would be spending the entirety of last week at the British Championships working with other athletes. Peaty is expected to be in Spain for two weeks before returning to his home base at Loughborough University.
Titley, an Englishman, previously coached Marshall during her competitive career, having spent time as the head coach at Loughborough ITC prior to heading to Toronto.
Canadian Kylie Masse, a four-time Olympic medalist and three-time world champion, followed Titley to Spain after his move last year.
Peaty, 28, has been the world’s best sprint breaststroker dating back to 2015, having swept the men’s 50 and 100-meter events at the World Championships three straight times from 2015 to 2019, lowering both world records on numerous occasions. He also won back-to-back Olympic golds in the 100 breast, becoming the first swimmer under 57 seconds (and 58) in the process, but his run of momentum was halted last year.
Peaty was forced to withdraw from the 2022 World Championships due to a foot injury, and then when he returned to action at the Commonwealth Games in July, competing on home soil in England, he shockingly missed the podium in the 100 breast. Despite rebounding to win gold in the 50 breast, it was clear he was nowhere near top form, leading him to withdraw from the European Championships a few weeks later.
On his withdrawal from last week’s British Championships, Peaty said: “Some might recognize it as burnout; I just know that over the last few years, I haven’t had the answers. With help, now I know how I can address the imbalance in my life.
“Whilst I am continuing to train, I have decided to withdraw from the British Swimming Championships next month. This is with the sole purpose of delivering the best performance possible in Paris at the 2024 Olympic Games.”
British Swimming had the option of selecting Peaty to the World Championship team despite his absence in Sheffield, but opted not to do so.
Is this the beginnings of a move away form Mel Marshall?
Could he be a late inclusion into GB’s Worlds team? Wilby didn’t look great at trials and I noticed how only 29 of the maximum of 30 swimmers were selected for Worlds, potentially leaving the door open for a late Peaty addition if Peaty changes his mind.
That thought occurred to me too.
*Perhaps just swimming the relays. Considerably less pressure on him then.
I wonder what his game plan is here. I thought he was going to step away from the sport like Dressel did for a mental break. But now that it appears he is in full training, my guess is his training has been lacking the past several months and decided it wasn’t worth it going to WC and go “all-in” on Paris 2024.
He’s already taken a LOT of time off in the last 18 months. Perhaps pulling out of worlds will give him a mental break while still being able to train, knowing that there’s no pressure on him to perform for at least 12 months
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