Adam Peaty and Team GB coach tell each other to 'f*** off' in heated confrontations

Team GB favourite Adam Peaty admitted his competitive spirit sometimes gets the better of him - leading him to tell his coach to “f*** off”.  The Olympic champion is eyeing his fourth gold medal at the Paris 2024 and divulged his unique relationship with Mel Marshall ahead of the Games. 

Peaty, 29, has worked with Marshall - the Aquatics GB lead coach at Loughborough Performance Centre - for almost two decades. They have formed an unbreakable bond in that time, with Marshall fuelling the breaststroke star’s competitive spirit with straight-talking analysis.

As expected when so much is at stake, passion sometimes becomes tension and even rage, with Peaty admitting to Gordon Ramsay - the father of his girlfriend Holly - that they regularly butt heads during training. But he was quick to add that they always reconcile after their heated exchanges, which ultimately benefit him in the long-term.

Asked by the celebrity chef on the BBC about how Marshall "goes for him" and tells him to "get his s*** together", the Staffordshire swimmer said: "Well, we clash! We've clashed many times but that's why we work so good. She'll be like 'it's not good enough, you need to be faster or these younger guys are beating you'.

"So I tell her to f*** off and she'll give it to me back, and it will get more heated, and then we'll come back around. We're both better off for it."

Ramsay highlighted that the anger is healthy as it stems from positive intentions, to which Peaty responded: "I'm always going to need Mel. Only she'll know how hard it's been for me to come back."

Peaty previously confessed his desire to quit swimming due to mental health struggles. Marshall played a crucial role in his remarkable comeback, which included qualifying for Paris with his fastest 100m breaststroke time since 2021.

Marshall, 42, plans to leave her role at Loughborough after the Games in order to move to Australia. However, she insists her relocation won't prevent her from working with world-record holder Peaty, if he decides to continue swimming after the Olympics.

"You always come to a part in your life when you will want change and you want development and you will want to move in a different direction, and this opportunity came when I was looking for that," Marshall told BBC East Midlands Today.

"There were opportunities and there were offers, and there was a feeling of desire for the skillset I have. It's the right time in my life, it's a good adventure to take and those things matched with what I want to do in the next stage of my career."

Peaty has the opportunity to clinch an astonishing fourth gold medal when the men's 100m breaststroke final gets underway on Sunday evening. Whether it will be his last Olympics dance remains unclear.