Adam Peaty became a British Olympic great today driven to success by the love of his 10-month-old son George and a working class family who encouraged a little boy who was terrified of water to become a British sporting phenomenon who has now conquered the world of swimming.
The star swimmer, 26, has said much of his success is due to his grounded parents Mark and Caroline, his girlfriend Eiri and his coach Mel, who will tell him off 'if she thinks I'm being a bit of a k***head' and shook him up when he missed out on London 2012 and 'got hammered' every Friday and Saturday night.
Today, as he became a sporting great by becoming the first British male swimmer to retain his men's 100 metres breaststroke Olympic title, he said on live TV: 'Thanks to the nation for being behind me for five years and my family and my beautiful boy. I knew it was going to take every bit of energy and I'm just so f****** relieved. Apologies for the swearing!'
But his success as an athlete is a world away from the water phobic boy who grew up in Uttoxeter. His mother Caroline said today: 'He hated water. We only found out later on it was because his brothers told him that sharks would come up out of the plug hole. We forced him to swim and we have a strong belief that all children should swim because it’s a life-saving skill’.
He has always had the backing of his inimitable nan Mavis, who stayed up all night to watch the race and tweeted at 3am this morning: 'You have done it Adam a double OLYMPIC CHAMPION so proud', signing the message off with: 'NAN'.
Adam and Eiri had their first child during lockdown, where Adam was forced to train in a giant bathtub in their garden when swimming pools were shuttered because of covid and the star swimmer has credited his little boy George-Anderson for driving him on. Eiri posted a moving photo of mother and son watching the medal ceremony this morning.
Eiri said today: 'I can't even find the words. I've never felt such pride before. Obviously George recognises the swimming now because we all get so excited when it comes on and then he sees his daddy, and definitely saw him when he was celebrating. If he was here now I'd give him a huge hug because that's what I'm dying to do and I'd tell him we're so proud of him and we love him so much and I didn't expect anything less from him’.
At 6ft 3in, and 13st 5lb, Peaty is the perfect shape for an athlete, and has earned the nickname of Britain's 'Hunk in the Trunks' as well as admirers of his tattoos, which includes a lion on his arm he says 'represents not fearing who I am up against'.
Adam Peaty and Eirianedd Munro with baby George before he set off on his Olympic odyssey where he retained his breastroke title
Adam Peaty's girlfriend Eiri and son George watch with pride as he collected his gold medal this morning in Japan
Eiri said today (pictured) that George recognised his daddy and got excited when he won
Adam Peaty qualified for the Commonwealth Games trials as a schoolboy and has a supportive family including his nan Mavis
His nan Mavis tweeted her congrats to her beloved grandson as he romped home at 3am
Adam Peaty's meaningful tattoo of
After winning gold and setting a world record in Rio in 2016, Peaty spent 20 hours in a tattoo studio, covering his upper arm with the image of a lion, along with roman numerals denoting the year 2016.
‘I’ve wanted to get a tattoo for a while, but I couldn’t because it would mean staying out of the pool since you can’t get them wet for a while,’ he said. ‘It reminds me what it took to get gold, and the new world record.’
‘The lion for me represents not fearing who I am up against, not fearing a herd of buffaloes and going out there on my own.’
On the inside of his bicep, he has a second tattoo, of the Olympic rings.
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A working-class boy made good, Adam is the fourth and youngest child of Lidl caretaker Mark Peaty and his wife Caroline, a nursery manager, who still live in the red-brick semi where he grew up on the outskirts of Uttoxeter, Staffordshire.
As an infant, the future Olympic champ was terrified of water. ‘He was petrified: he didn’t even like having a bath or a shower,’ Caroline recalled. ‘From the time he could stand, Adam would never even sit down in the bath.’
When the time came to teach him to swim, a severe tantrum ensued. ‘His mum took him to the swimming pool, but he would not go in,’ said his grandmother Mavis Williams, a former biscuit factory worker. ‘Then, around one week later, a friend took him along. I don’t know what happened, but after that, he started going.’
His family say that his fear of water has not entirely disappeared, with the fastest breaststroke swimmer in history is still not keen on going in the sea, still wearing shoes and long trunks because he 'can't stand seaweed', his mother has said.
While Peaty was training at Loughborough University, he met girlfriend Eirianedd Munro, a student who was studying Fine Arts. He was in a relationship with Anna Zair until 2017.
Adam and Eiri announced they were expecting their first child in April 2020, and welcomed their son in September.
He has credited girlfriend Eiri and their son George-Anderson with providing him the extra motivation he needs in training.
He said: ‘As soon as I look at pictures from home, my son or my girlfriend Eiri, I’m like, “OK, I am ready to go now”. It gives me a natural emotion of, “I want to do them proud”.
He says photos of their young son
Eri has herself amassed a total of 13k followers on Instagram, where she shares sultry snaps, and also posts photographs of her nude paintings on her art page.
Meanwhile she has also launched a YouTube channel, on which she has 865 subscribers, and posts videos like: 'Things I Wish I Knew Before Having a Baby.'
It was at the City of Derby Swimming Club where the pair first met and it was his mother Caroline who woke up at 4.30am every morning to take the youngest of her four children from their home in Uttoxeter to training.
Peaty has credited his father Mark for instilling a relentless work ethic that only surfaced in a sliding doors moment while watching London 2012, which put the then unfocused 17-year-old on the right path.
Adam's doting parents Mark and Caroline (pictured today with one of their grandchildren) who admitted for many years their star swimmer son was scared of water
Peaty says he stays motivated for training through his desire to the fastest person he can be for his family - and was forced to train in a giant bath in his garden during lockdown
Adam is now a British Olympic great after today's win
'My dad says I don't know what I've achieved yet and he's probably right. But I've got a good support team around me and Mel (Marshall, his coach) will keep me grounded. If she thinks I'm being a bit of a k***head she will be quick to say so. She is a massive influence on me.'
At 14, Adam had sufficient talent to be asked to train daily at the City Of Derby Swimming Club. ‘It was really hard going,’ Caroline recalled. ‘I’d get up at 4am, drive him 40 minutes to Derby, wait two hours while he was training, or go to Tesco, then drive him back and do a full day’s work. Then we’d do it again in the evening.’
The local community organised barbecues to help with the cost of travel to competitions.
In 2012, Adam was one of 264 talented young swimmers to receive a £1,000 grant from Lloyds Bank designed to help create ‘future Olympians’, but he was still some way short of being selected for that summer’s Games in London.
He was then aged 17 and was about to go and get ‘drunk in a field’ before discovering that Craig Benson, a friend from their junior days, had made the semi-final of the 100m breaststroke.
‘I was really jealous,’ Peaty has recalled. ‘He was the same age and he was at a home Olympics, something I would never get a chance to do again. It was a “What am I doing with my life” moment.’
That was the moment he ‘started being serious’ about swimming and four years later he became Olympic champion in that event.
‘As a teenager, I used to love getting hammered,’ Peaty admits. ‘But you get those moments where you appreciate that you are an athlete and all these things that come with an athlete have to come first. I’d love to go out on a Friday night, on a Saturday night with the lads. I did that in 2018, pretty much, from like September to December.’
Every Friday and Saturday? ‘Oh yeah, and Thursday,’ Peaty replies. ‘And I just got bored of it in the end, and now I don’t even crave it because I got it out of my system. It got a bit tedious.’
Despite his lifestyle in the months prior, Peaty still won three gold medals at the World Championships in July
