Adam Peaty suffered embarrassing wardrobe malfunction during ‘biggest race’
Adam Peaty won silver in the 100m breaststroke on Sunday, missing out on gold by just 0.02 seconds. It brought his medal tally to three gold medals and three silver medals across three Olympic Games.
Adam Peaty recalled an embarrassing moment from his junior swimming days.(Image: Getty Images)
Olympian Adam Peaty encountered an embarrassing wardrobe mishap during “the biggest race” of his life.
The decorated swimmer bagged a silver medal in the 100m breaststroke on Sunday (July 28), making it his third silver and sixth Olympic medal overall. However, an early-career episode is likely to have left Peaty red-faced.
The swimmer disclosed that at just 17 years old, while participating in a crucial junior race, he suffered a malfunction with his swimming trunks. On Sir Chris Hoy’s ‘Sporting Misadventures’ podcast, he detailed: “I’ve had a lot of things happen to me but one of the worst was at European juniors. For context that was the biggest race of my life so I’d prepared all season for this and I was like 17, I think I was at this point.”
Claiming his standing depended on winning the race, he went on to say: “I get onto the blocks and I’m like okay, my 50m went horrendous, my 200m went horrendous, I’ve got win this race because there’s two Brits who have qualified ahead of me.”
We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and third parties based on our knowledge of you. More info
He continued: “I’ve got to beat their time, at this point you could only have two Brits in the final, so I’ve got to beat my own teammates to get that spot. I got on the block, I’m ready, I was physically primed, mentally primed to go and get it.”
Adam Peaty experienced an awkward moment at the start of his career.(Image: Jari Pestelacci/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images)
Taking the story to a painful finish, he said: “And I’d stretched a little bit too far on the block, and baring in mind the crowd were behind me, my trunks ripped right down the a***, like literally split right down the middle.”
“I was like firstly ‘why, why has this happened’ and secondly, ‘what do I do about it’. My team manager comes down with this tiny pair of Speedos that aren’t even mine, like a training trunk, a g-string and throws them and says ‘put these on and you’ve got to race’.”
Adam Peaty in the 100m breaststroke on Sunday.(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Peaty only began taking swimming seriously when he was aged 17. He has previously admitted to having a lightbulb moment during the 2012 London Olympics.
He told the Guardian he was preparing for a night out to “get drunk in a field or something stupid like that” when he saw his friend Chris Benson, just eight months his senior, had qualified the semi-finals in Peaty’s favourite event, the 100m breaststroke.
This pivotal moment led Peaty to question his life choices. The Staffordshire swimmer has since smashed world records 14 times – at present, retaining the distinction in the 50 metre and 100 metre breaststroke – being the first man to break the 26-second barrier for the 50 metre breaststroke and complete the 100m in under 57 seconds.
