FILE PHOTO: Swimming - World Aquatics Championships - Aspire Dome, Doha, Qatar - February 13, 2024 Britain's Adam Peaty reacts after the men's 50m breaststroke semifinal 1 REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne
LONDON (Reuters) - Adam Peaty has an open mind but his mother Caroline said on Monday she hopes the triple Olympic champion will give up competitive swimming after the Paris Games and live a more normal life.
Peaty, 29, is going for a third successive 100 metres breaststroke gold after becoming the first British swimmer to defend an Olympic title at the Tokyo Games in 2021. He also has two Olympic relay silvers.
American Michael Phelps is the only swimmer to have won gold in the same event at three Games, and Peaty has said he goes to Paris this month as an underdog but at peace with himself and without pressure.
The world record holder has reset his approach to the sport after overcoming issues with mental health and alcohol. He missed the 2022 world championships with a fractured foot and took time out last year.
"I know that he's happy, he's in the place he wants to be now and he's more secure. He's ready as he'll ever be," Caroline Peaty told BBC Radio.
"Knowing your child is suffering no matter how old they are is difficult. Adam is very happy now -- I think he's a better Adam personally than what he was before, the break has done him good.
"He's going in to the Olympics not stressed, he's happy -- what will be will be. He has an open mind on whether this is his last Olympics. I hopefully want him to finish swimming and to have some kind of normality now."
Peaty, who has a three-year-old son, told reporters last month that swimming had taken a toll on him.
"When you achieve what I have in the sport, Olympic golds and world records, that comes at a cost," he said.
"I started (the current cycle) in a place where I had to take a break from the sport, a break from life really, because it’s so demanding.
"Whatever the result is on the scoreboard, you want to look back on that experience with ‘Wow, I gave it my best shot’. I wouldn’t ever regret giving it my best shot. And I’m giving my best shot every single day," he added.
"But I would regret not even trying. I could have stopped 14 months ago... I’d have been watching from afar knowing that at the back of my mind I could have given it a shot."
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
