Adam Peaty Targets Rio Olympics Domination Following "Amazing" SPOTY Nomination

Swimmer Adam Peaty was arriving back home from training when he discovered he had been named on the shortlist for this year’s BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

“I was just walking through the door,” Peaty told Bleacher Report. “I think I got a call from my manager—it put a massive smile on my face.”

The timing was not that unusual; most news Peaty receives, whether it be good, bad or indifferent, tends to come when he has just finished a training session. There are so many of them, the odds are not in favour of information arriving any other way.

The 19-year-old (he will turn 20 three days after Christmas) commits to ten two-hour swimming sessions a week (two on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays, with Saturday the solitary rest day); a grueling regime that was nonetheless the backbone of the Uttoxeter-born swimmer’s breakthrough 2014.

“And on top of that I have five gym sessions,” Peaty points out, matter-of-factly. “It’s about 30-35 hours a week—it’s quite intense.”

That might be an understatement, but "intense" is a word that could also be used to describe the season Peaty has had. A virtual unknown at the start of the year, the breaststroke specialist ends it having won two gold medals at the Commonwealth Games and four at the European Championships, adding to that haul a world record in the 50m that capped off a rapid ascent to becoming arguably Great Britain’s most impressive swimming talent.

The public will know Peaty from his exploits in the summer in Glasgow, where he also claimed a silver medal, but it was the world record in Berlin—where he broke idol Cameron van der Burgh’s five-year old record (one set wearing now-outlawed suits)—that he believes ultimately persuaded the BBC panel to put him on their prestigious shortlist.

“I hoped that the world record might tip it towards a nomination, but it was absolutely amazing to have it confirmed,” he says. “And then even better when [the list] was released, it all became real.

“I never thought I would make it at this age. It is kind of is a dream come true at the moment but I don’t want to settle for it, I want to push on and keep getting nominated and hopefully one day win it!”

Peaty joins the likes of golfer Rory McIlroy, racing driver Lewis Hamilton and Real Madrid forward Gareth Bale on the 10-person shortlist, although he is not sure who will be getting his vote just yet.

“It’s a really high-profile lineup,” he adds. “It’s going to be really tough to get in that top three, and extremely tough for whoever wins it because everyone in that lineup is really, really talented.”

Peaty has already arranged to attend the event—which takes place where it originated for him, in Glasgow—next month. After all, he will only have to miss one training session in order to do so. “And I’ll probably make that up in the week anyway.”

Edelman

It is that determination not to do anything that might jeopardize his training that has helped Peaty, blessed with a 6’3” frame well-suited to breaststroke, to build on his natural gifts to become one of the most impressive swimmers in the world.

His rise has been astronomical—not even able to watch the London Olympics as a spectator two years ago, the Commonwealth Games was his first major event experience—but not entirely unexpected. Since overcoming an initial fear of water as a small child, Peaty has gone from strength-to-strength through the age groups and always thought this season might see his breakthrough at senior level.

“I wanted to medal in the 100, that’s my main event, but it is always one of these things that I never thought I would achieve until now,” he says. The excitement of it all meant he sometimes only slept for three hours before key races, but that, along with the atmosphere around Glasgow, "is what made the Games. It is an experience that will stick with me for life—but hopefully I’ve got a lot more experiences like that to come.

“I have had time to think about it but I wanted to move on to the Europeans, and that’s what I did.”

The European Championships saw a sweep of four gold medals, cementing Peaty’s new-found status after he broke his first world record in the semi-finals. His remarkable adjustment to elite-level competition has not been down to him alone, however; the Derby-based man is keen to pay tribute to his coaches and Rebecca Adlington, who has proven to be an invaluable advisor to the next generation of British swimmers.

“She’s been a really good addition to the programme, and she’s also a great friend,” he says. “She’s been there, she’s done it, so any questions I’ve had I just pop them over to her and she replies instantly with a solution or a suggestion.

“It’s little things like that that make the big difference.”

Gero Breloer/Associated Press

Adlington, of course, made her own name at the 2008 Olympics in China, and it is the next Games, in Rio de Janeiro, where Peaty hopes to take his career to the next level. Even now, more than 18 months away from the experience, Peaty is itching to sample the atmosphere in Brazil.

“It is one of the experiences that is going to be… I actually can’t believe that it is going to happen,” he says, the excitement tangible. “In Rio hopefully I am going to be in top shape. I don’t want to peak this year and fall back for Rio.

“It’s all about gaining experience and I got that this year. Hopefully I can build on that and improve myself, and then prove myself again in Rio—because that’s when I really want to come out of my shell and show the world what I can do.”

Swimming was one of the few areas of disappointment for Team GB in 2012, with the the country's flock of swimmers failing to meet medal expectations inside the Aquatic Centre. That led to criticism and some recriminations within British Swimming, but Peaty believes he is one of a number of athletes now on course to set the record straight in two years’ time.

"It’s a great opportunity for the whole team to show what Great Britain really is about,” he states. “We can build upon the past experiences and mistakes, whatever you want to call them, and come out of shells and show the world what we really can do.

"We can put the country’s name on the map, to be feared globally.”

Thanks to his efforts in 2014, many would say Peaty has already done that.