Adam Peaty will use his defeat at Commonwealth Games 2022 as “jet fuel”

• Adam Peaty says his Commonwealth Games loss will give him “jet fuel” for the future.
• The 27-year-old was pushed down to fourth place in the 100m breaststroke final.
• He came back to win the 50m title for the first time in his career.

Adam Peaty says that his shocking loss in the breaststroke at the Commonwealth Games 2022 will give him “jet fuel” as he works toward the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

In Birmingham, the English star was pushed down to fourth place in the 100m breaststroke.

But the 27-year-old came back strong and won the Commonwealth 50m title for the first time in his long career. The home crowd went crazy as he thumped the water in joy.

When he thought back on it on Thursday, one day after the swimming events in Birmingham were over, Peaty said he was “raw” with emotion because it had been one of the hardest weeks of his career.

“The strategy is about really reflecting and using that hunger and that loss in the 100m to drive me into new territory,” he said.

“The spark has been reignited. I can always tell because I am a bit angry at myself but that’s how I need to be.”

Peaty holds the world record in both the 50m and 100m breaststroke. He has also won three gold medals at the Olympics and a number of world championships.

Because he broke his foot, he couldn’t go to the worlds in Budapest in June.

“I’ve done everything in the sport that I’ve needed to do,” said Peaty, who had never lost a 100m final at a major international long-course competition before these Games.

“I’ve broken world records that I didn’t think I’d get anywhere near so now in my career it’s about how do I finish in the strongest possible way over the next two, or four, or six years.”

He also said, “I do believe that everything happens for a reason and I do believe the reason is that either someone’s looking out for me that I needed that extra drive in these next two years or, who knows?”

The swimmer, who was on the British TV show “Strictly Come Dancing” last year, said that winning the 50m title in Birmingham in front of his one-year-old son was “very special”

“Any parent, you want to lead by example and that was also my motivation to go in the 50m and win it,” he said.

“I said to myself: ‘What would you tell George? Would you just tell him to give up and go home and use this as a reason to go home?’

“No, you’d tell him to stand up, walk out with a proud chest and go and fight for it.”

Peaty said that after a tough two years, it was now time to “reset, recalibrate and decompress”

“The training has to be the priority now because I have missed two winters and don’t know how much this (Commonwealths) took out of me or how much not training in the winter took out of me so I just want to completely reset and go hard in September.”

He said it was too soon to say when he would retire.

“For me so much has changed in the past two years that I can’t even predict what will happen in the next two,” he said.

“It might just completely change how I approach the sport, how my family is. I’ve got other commitments in my life, very important ones.

“I’d like to end obviously in a very good and solid position.”

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