Adam Ramsay-Peaty admitted he is beatable after his latest third-place finish at the Commonwealth Games. The swimmer, one of the best of his generation, has faced setbacks in and out of the pool recently.
Ramsay-Peaty finished third in both the 100m and 50m breaststroke. On reflection, he accepted he isn't as dominant as he used to be.
Emotional admission
He remarked: "I used to be the winning machine. Now I've shown my human side. For that period when I was undefeated for eight years, it was athlete first and human second. Now it's human first, then athlete."
"I've been that person who won all the time, and it cost me pretty much everything. I wouldn't say it's worth it now."
"There's been a lot of learning this week. I'm pretty sure that was my last individual event at the Commonwealth Games. I really enjoyed it, but we just weren't fast enough. We weren't good enough, and we have to look at why."
Before adding: "Every day in training this season I've been tracking in the right direction, so I can't really put my finger on it. Somewhere along the way I've lost that power per stroke, but that's sport."
"I'm not going to lie, it's frustrating when you can't quite put your finger on what's wrong. You digest it, just like in any other sport. You look at the data, work out what went wrong and really focus on fixing those areas."
Family feud
The comments come after Ramsay-Peaty gave a tearful and frustrated interview after missing gold in the 100m breaststroke earlier in the Games. He has also been embroiled in a bitter family feud involving his mother, Caroline, who was not invited to his wedding.
Speaking on the saga, Peaty-Ramsay had said: "Pressure can be given to anyone, but it's probably best in my hands because the more pressure I'm under, the better I perform."
"At the same time, you need a strategy for managing the noise and we probably haven't done that as well as we could, but I'll make sure the swimming does the talking."
"We can't control every variable in life, but I can stand behind the blocks and not really care about what people's opinions are."
His mother responded by saying: "We continue to support Adam from afar. He's our son who we love, whom we supported to reach his aspirations."
"Our love, our time, our sacrifices were given freely with no expectation of financial reward just genuinely given with the love as any mother and father would do for their child."
She added: "We are strong, we love and are always there for each other." She finished her post with: "The very nature of our strength as a family has helped us move past the nastiness, the lies that have been told about us."
