Adam Peaty shock brings fresh motivation

Peaty, who bounced back to win gold in Tuesday’s 50m breaststroke just 48 hours after being beaten for the first time in a senior 100m race, explained how his experiences at Sandwell Aquatics Centre had restored his hunger to prove himself the best on the planet.

The 27-year-old, who missed this year’s world championships with a broken foot which also disrupted his preparations for the Commonwealth Games, will resume training next month with the view of returning to competition in 2023.

He said: “In sport, you need those wake-up calls. If it is all sunshine and rainbows, you never really appreciate the rain.

“I have appreciated the rain now, the storm. I am going to ride that storm and slingshot myself into next season.

“If you lose anything in life, especially something you are so passionate about, it creates a clarity in what you want to do and where you are going.

“I have the hunger now to prove I am the best in the world and can dominate the 100m. I have to fight like that for the next two years.”

Peaty confirmed Tuesday’s stunning win in the 50m was his last ever at a Commonwealth Games but warned that did not mean he plans to retire after the Paris Olympics two years from now.

“I want to spend the next two years really going at it and then we will see how we are,” he explained. “I need to love what I do every single day and obviously family comes into play. Who knows, I might need to go down the job centre after Paris anyway?”

Peaty, whose honest interviews have won both praise and criticism in recent days, departed Birmingham by issuing a plea for the government to increase investment in sport.

The three-time Olympic champion view the transformation of the new £73million Aquatics Centre into a community pool as a positive step but is concerned by the continued closure of centres, particularly in the Midlands and northern England. A report published earlier this year estimated half of the UK’s 4,000 pools were at risk.

Peaty said: “These Games have to be a platform. We should hold the government and councils accountable and make sure we are investing in these facilities.

“It is very easy to shut down these places and say they are too expensive to run. We are almost at a crossroads with society where people are not knowing how to deal with life and their emotions.

“I know from personal experience if I wake up angry, I go training and feel better. We really need to wake-up and hold those people accountable, whoever is making those decisions and stop closing pools, especially in the north and the Midlands because it seems to be at an alarming rate right now.

“People from all walks of life use swimming pools. It is not just sport. You have the early bird and people using it in the middle of the day, learn to swim which is incredibly important to people’s health.

“Then you have the competitive side of things as well. What is the point of investing £24million every four years if we can’t invest in the next generation. You just shoot yourself in the foot.”