Swimmer Adam Peaty wants to ban children waking up at 4am for training

Olympic swimmer Adam Peaty wants to ban children from 4am training sessions in a 'major overhaul' of the sport's coaching.

Britain's most successful swimmer called the training ritual 'ridiculous' and stated there is no 'physiological reason' why a nine-year-old child needs to attend training in the early morning hours.

Peaty believes that morning training sessions should be implemented for swimmers 14 and over but 4am training has become a staple of the hugely competitive youth club structure.

Peaty -who took home a silver medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics -stated that this training model, based on results, risks burnout among young swimmers.

The 29-year-old now wants to open a discussion with Aquatics GB, swimmings national governing body, to outline his concerns.

Speaking to The Telegraph he said: 'There is a reason why 70 per cent of people, all the way up to 15 years old, drop off swimming and don't do it again.

'It's because it hasn't changed. The coaches haven't got the amount of support and knowledge to show the long-term vision.

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'Because a coach in this country gets all their validation and gratification from success.

'Yes, be competitive. Yes, win races and, yes, work hard. [But] we need to protect them [the swimmers] in that youth age.

'Enjoy it as much as you can - a few times a week - and it should all be fun-based'.

Peaty said he 'understands' that investment in young talented swimmers is important to the development of the sport.

However, he added that he does not believe ‘enough is being done’ to provide a healthy approach to the sport for young swimmers. 

In one of the shocks of the Paris Games, Peaty the two-time defending champion of the 100 metres breaststroke final was beaten by Nicolo Martinenghi after only clocking 59.05sec - just 0.02sec behind the Italian winner but some 2.17sec off his 2019 world record.

What Peaty did not know at the time, however, was that he was racing with Covid.

Speaking to Mail Sport he said: 'The morning of the race, I really struggled to warm-up. I felt very airy and dazed. 

'Normally I could do 50m underwater, but I had to come up at 15m. I couldn't breathe. 

'So you're already taking a performance decrease of 70 per cent. My head was just in a bad place.'

While Peaty has been back in the pool since Paris, as well as keeping himself fit through running and gym work, he says he will not compete again until at least 2026.

Speaking on the younger generation of swimmers he said: 'I give a lot of my time essentially for free, which I love and I enjoy. I look forward to having those conversations, especially those domestic conversations in Aquatics GB, of, 'how can we retain those athletes.

He added: 'We are trying to protect the younger age group to make sure they don't burn out by the time they are 14'.