EXCITING NEWS FOR STRICTLY’S ADAM ‘PEACHY’ FANS... Shirtless is just the first step.. the less I have on the more comfortable I am!
EXCLUSIVE AS an Olympic gold medallist, swimmer Adam Peaty is used to wearing very little.
But nothing could prepare him for the splash he has caused on Strictly Come Dancing.
Many of the show’s die-hard fans have been in need of a cold shower after seeing his toned torso as he sashays across the BBC ballroom.
They have been so captivated by his bulging biceps and perfect pecs that they have taken to social media to inundate the 26-year-old with cheeky messages.
He has even picked up the nickname “Peachy” after fans were distracted by his snug trousers in the first week of the show.
“Twitter’s gone mental for the bum,” Adam laughs, during a wellearned break from training ahead of this weekend’s live show.
“I’ve had tweets saying my chest should be a World Heritage Site and my trousers are worth the TV licence fee alone – that’s great value for money. There’s been some brilliant ones!”
STRONG
“And the men…” he adds with a wry smile, suggesting it is not just ladies lusting after him across the country.
Adam was determined to give his army of new fans exactly what they wanted during the show’s Movie Week on Saturday.
He was only too happy to strip off and dance his rumba routine topless – admittedly while painted entirely blue. But will he stop there? It seems not.
The athlete, paired with pro dancer Katya Jones, 32, teases that was just the start of his Strictly strip show – as he is prepared to peel off even more layers the longer he stays in the competition.
Even a pair of his Team GB trunks could make an appearance.
“I’ve already had my chest out, so that’s step one,” he says with a laugh. “See how everyone reacts and then we’ll go from there!
“The less clothes that I have on, the more comfortable I am, to be perfectly honest.
“In a three-piece suit, I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s too hot’, but being out in trunks, it’s much easier. I feel comfortable. Very strange, isn’t it? But that’s been my life. My whole career has been me in trunks. It’s not weird to me having hardly any clothes on!”
And quite the career he has had. Incredibly Adam, who was born in Uttoxeter, Staffs, was so afraid of water as a child that his nursery manager mum Caroline had problems giving him a bath.
He has previously said he did not like water because he was sure “sharks would come and get me”, but fortunately he got over his fear.
Since his first Olympics in 2016, Adam has triumphed in the pool, taking home five medals including golds at Rio and Tokyo.
He is the master of his sport and
HONOUR Awarded MBE in 2017
To me, it doesn’t feel weird to have hardly any clothes on ADAM PEATY ON HIS ‘LESS IS MORE’ APPROACH
has the powerhouse body to prove it – though it has changed since he swapped the pool for the dance floor.
Adam, who has one-year-old son George-anderson with partner Eiri Munro, says: “I’ve lost a lot of fat. I haven’t measured, but I can tell in my mirror that I’m more curvy in the sense that I’m slim-lined.
“Usually, my upper body is bigger than my lower body, like a reverse triangle. But now I’m building the legs up to be strong and building the hips up too.” There is one area of
Peachy’s body that is definitely increasing, though.
“My bum’s got bigger, somehow,” he says. “I’ve not been in a gym in 10 weeks and my bum is bigger!
“My legs have got stronger. It’s just adapting your body to being vertical – for me, that’s the hardest part.
“You’re always on your feet, and if you’re doing 10 hours of dancing, of course it’s going to put a lot of strain on your hips and on your legs.”
Adam, awarded an MBE in 2017, is a show favourite both on screen and behind the scenes, where he is keeping spirits up sending cheeky pictures to the group Whatsapp. He clearly doesn’t take himself seriously
though and is relieved to be cutting loose after years training for this summer’s Tokyo Olympics, where he won two gold medals and a silver.
His social media platforms are filled with videos of him messing about in the training room.
SEXY
Swapping the Speedos for sequins means Adam has to unleash his sexy side to win over the judges – but it doesn’t faze him.
“That’s the easy part, to be honest,” he says. “We don’t have to work on bringing out my sexy side. We’ve got to tone that down, if anything!
“Honestly, I struggle with the serious stuff, I just want to smile. I’m having such a good time. Last year, if you’d said I’d be on this show, painted, halfnaked, dancing in front of nine million people… no way!”
When Adam dives back into the pool, he will bring some of the showbiz sparkle he is developing on Strictly.
“I think I’m the only person on this show that doesn’t really do any TV stuff, so that’s actually taken some getting used to,” he says.
“It’s great for testing your charisma. I can take a lot of this learning into my actual job. I think sport needs to be entertaining and I can use that.”
So, is his heart set on adding the Glitterball to his trophy cabinet? “No,
I don’t think so,” he says. “The only pressure I feel is the one I put on myself to learn the dance and not let Katya down.
“The contestants are all incredible this year, everyone is just so brilliant. Anyone deserves it.
“As I’m getting through the competition, I’m like, ‘I just want to stay in this little world of dancing and TV and just learning new dances’.
“I’m just enjoying it. My life is competition but with this, I feel like I’m nurturing my dancing soul. I love music and I love dancing, I want to do it for as long as possible.”