FILE PHOTO: Commonwealth Games - Swimming - Men's 50m Breaststroke - Final - Sandwell Aquatics Centre, Birmingham, Britain - August 2, 2022 England's Adam Peaty celebrates after winning gold REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov/File Photo
DOHA (Reuters) - Turning the page on a strife-torn year, Adam Peaty will resume his role as the standard-bearer for British swimming on Sunday when the Olympic champion dives into the Doha pool at the World Championships for the 100 metres breaststroke heats.
At a meeting snubbed by a legion of top swimmers, Peaty's long-awaited return to the world stage will be warmly welcomed by fans and organisers.
It will also be a milestone on the road to Paris where the 29-year-old world record holder will hope to defend his 100m breaststroke gold and become one of the hallowed few swimmers to win the same individual title three times.
Peaty's incredible dominance in breaststroke has earned him six individual world titles, the trappings of celebrity and an appearance on reality TV show Strictly Come Dancing.
But the pressure to live up to his own towering expectations, the discipline of dieting and the relentless grind of training have proved overwhelming.
Having spoken previously of suffering depression and problems with alcohol, Peaty withdrew from competitive swimming last year and revealed he had been in a "self-destructive spiral".
He returned to the pool for a trio of World Cup events in October where he finished off the podium in all of them and was well beaten by Chinese world champion Qin Haiyang.
It may take time for Peaty to return to his all-conquering best but the Briton's head-space on the eve of the World Championships is encouraging.
He told the BBC that he had found comfort in his Christian faith and been reminded that sport was not the "real world".
"I spent most of my life kind of validating, getting my gratification or life's fulfilment from my results and that led me to some dark moments," he said.
"And it's really living your life on a quantifiable measure of results, results, results instead of how are the people around me? How am I, how is my son, how is my family?
"All these things actually do matter, it's not about your job, it's not just about performance.
"And to get that, the only place I found it was at church."
Having long worn his heart on his sleeve, Peaty now wears a tattoo of a cross on his midriff with the words: "Into the light".
He said his faith had saved him during his bleak period last year but not doused his competitive fire.
He regards the Olympics with an almost-monastic spirit of sacrifice.
"You have to recognise that and if you go to the Olympics, you have to write a contract with yourself and sign that contract and know if you are going to pay the cost, is that cost going to be worth it?" he said.
"And will I be willing to pay that? I don't want to live with the regret that I didn't even try."
(Reporting by Ian Ransom in Doha; Editing by Toby Davis)
