Adam Peaty has said he is “hurt” by his exit from Strictly Come Dancing.
Alongside his professional partner Katya Jones, the Olympic swimmer was eliminated from the BBC One celebrity dancing competition on Sunday.
Peaty found himself at the bottom of the leaderboard after Saturday’s live show and on Sunday was in a dance-off against influencer Tilly Ramsay and her partner Nikita Kuzmin.
Adam and Katya are the seventh couple to leave #Strictly, but we can't say goodbye without a final lap of #ItTakesTwo 🏊♂️
Plus Rhys and Nancy talk about the mechanics of their energetic Quickstep 👨🔧👩🔧
6:30pm on @BBCTwo pic.twitter.com/pWkYFMya8v
— BBC Strictly ✨ (@bbcstrictly) November 8, 2021
Speaking to sister show It Takes Two, he said: “I am hurt, but I know that Katya’s hurting a little bit, which hurts me more, because I know how much we have put into this journey.”
Discussing the impact that training had on his body, he added: “Honestly, I can say this now – normally I would keep this under wraps – but my ankles were going, my calf was going.
“I was trying to do as many runs as I can but the jive is one of those dances which requires 150% of you, and when you haven’t got 150% you need something else that’s going to put you apart.
“But on the Thursday I was like, ‘Katya, I can’t do any more. I’m an Olympic athlete and I can push through things that most people can’t push through, but my Achilles is going to go’.”
Peaty said his time on the show was “not easy”, adding: “People see the Saturday night delivery, which is the smiles, the laughs, the all-consuming thing of Strictly.
“But for me, I put absolutely everything into that and I enjoyed the lows as much as the highs, because that’s what I remember.
“But it’s not all positive. It’s really hard.”
Peaty’s final performance was a jive to Little Bitty Pretty One by Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers.