Adam Peaty: There are worms in the food in the Olympic Village (2024)

PARIS — Adam Peaty has hit out at Paris 2024 organisers for failing to provide athletes with adequate food at the Olympic Games.

Peaty, 29, told i he was concerned about the quantity and quality of the food in the Olympic Village after finishing fourth in the 4x100m medley relay on the final evening of the swimming meet.

The six-time Olympic medallist said the team had been “blindsided” by the challenges of living in the Village, in particular the food.

“The catering isn’t good enough for the level the athletes are expected to perform. We need to give the best we possibly can,” Peaty tells i.

“Tokyo, the food was incredible, Rio was incredible. But this time around… there wasn’t enough protein options, long queues, waiting 30 minutes for food because there’s no queuing system.

“These [complaints] are for people to get better. And the organising committee, so we’ll put these back to our team in full depth and detail.

“But it’s definitely been the best Games in terms of fans engaged with it. So you never gonna have a perfect Games.”

A Paris 2024 spokesperson told i on Monday they were taking athletes’ feedback “very seriously” and had made a number of changes to the supply of food to “ensure that the service runs smoothly” since the Games began.

Since the publication of this article, the organisers amended their statement to say they had “no information to be able to confirm the specific allegation” from Peaty. Team GB has also confirmed that no reports of worms in food have been made to their staff.

Organisers also claim they worked closely with teams’ nutritionists, but Peaty believes that Paris 2024’s climate pledges – to make 60 per cent of all meals served at the Games meatless and a third plant-based – have made it hard for many athletes to stick their normal diet.

“The narrative of sustainability has just been punished on the athletes. I want meat, I need meat to perform and that’s what I eat at home, so why should I change?” Peaty adds.

“I like my fish and people are finding worms in the fish. It’s just not good enough.

“The standard, we’re looking at the best of the best in the world, and we’re feeding them not the best.

“I just want people to get better at their roles and jobs. And I think that’s what the athletes are the best sounding board for.”

Despite all of that, Peaty is impressively chipper, particularly when you recall he has also barely got over Covid, he has a chest and ear infection, he is on a potent co*cktail of antibiotics and still says he feels “rough”, he finished fourth in the medley relay the night before our interview and has had two hours of sleep.

He has just had a meal at Team GB House though, rather than the Village, so that perhaps helps.

By Peaty’s impossibly high standards, this could quite reasonably be described as a nightmare Olympic Games.

He only won silver in the 100m breaststroke, an event he has dominated for the best part of a decade, testing positive for Covid the morning after, and only swam in one more event.

The British team finished a dreaded fourth in the 4x100m medley relay.

He is clinging onto the fact that he swum a 58.16 leg, half a second faster than France’s four-gold wonder Leon Marchand.

“I’m really happy with the final last night, being able to show that speed,” Peaty says.

His individual final a week earlier was the event’s slowest in 20 years.

The Covid diagnosis could explain the lack of speed, although it is not the only thing Peaty is fighting.

There is mental fatigue too. Peaty has talked at length about battles with depression, coming through “three years of hell” before rededicating himself to swimming with the Olympics in mind.

“The last 14 months have been relentless, the sacrifices I’ve had to make,” Peaty says.

He will now take a break from the sport, although what that looks like isn’t clear, and neither is whether he will compete at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.

“It’s also not important to know that right now,” Peaty adds.

“I think the most important thing is that we relax, have a nice bottle of wine, steak, some good food at home and just do something normal. Go for a walk and enjoy that normality.

“I’ll probably look at the landscape in two years’ time and see if [2028] is really achievable.

“LA is a long, long way away. But I’m looking forward to hybrid training.

“I’m still going to be fit. I love my rowing, I love my cycling, I love my gym. I’m still a massive fitness advocate so I’m definitely not going to get fat.

“I think I’ll still swim. I enjoy swimming. It’s a fantastic sport. It’s one sport where you haven’t gotten a Garmin, you haven’t got a tracker on you, you haven’t got your phone near you.

“So it’s good to just get complete clarity.”

Perspective has been an increasingly important part of Peaty’s complicated psyche, having become a father in 2020 and then gone through a break-up with George’s mother.

“I never take tomorrow for granted. And I think especially when it comes to my child and my family, I want to make sure that those memories are cherished and we’re not sacrificing everything for the sake of gold. I think gold can still be won in a nice balanced approach.”

The Games have given him the chance to spend time with other famous sporting dads like Max Whitlock and Andy Murray, both of whom are retiring after Paris 2024.

“Max is in a very similar situation with a young family and sometimes sport just costs too much,” Peaty says.

”Especially in Olympic sports when you only get the limelight every four years really.

“Max is an incredible athlete, what he’s done has inspired me to new highs as well.”

Murray’s impact is similar.

When he was the flag-bearer at Rio 2016, he gave a speech to the team before the opening ceremony that has been described since as a rallying cry, an inspirational one.

Peaty hopes to hear it again.

“He’s such a great leader in the team. I’m hoping he still has a role in Team GB whether that’s just going into the Village and giving a bit more morale or [using] his humour.

“He’s very witty. It’s like Duncan [Scott, fellow Olympic swimmer]. It must be the Scottish.”

But the Olympics comes only every four years, something Peaty clearly struggles with.

There is no chance, for example, that he will still be competing at 41, as Novak Djokovic said on Sunday he would like to be.

“If we had the grand slam equivalent of a schedule that is ‘we’ve got to hit this every year,’” Peaty says.

“But to promise a life four years of this career is absolutely brutal.

“Because what happens if I do it again and I get ill. It’s too much, it’s too painful.”

There are other things Peaty wants to see change too.

This is the first Olympics where some governing bodies, specifically athletics and boxing, are guaranteeing prize money for athletes.

Peaty, who also owns a business running race clinics around the UK and soon the Middle East, is keen for swimming to catch up and give the athletes what they deserve.

“It’s got to. I think the IOC has to give back more to the athletes now,” Peaty adds.

“And so they should. We’re the entertainment. I don’t think a phone [major sponsor Samsung have given every athlete at the Games a new phone] and the Village is enough – and the athletes are waking up to that.

“But that’s a very complex question with very complex answers, because I know the governing bodies are funding that at the moment, but World Aquatics has more than enough money to go around.”

Adam Peaty is a Team Visa athlete