Strictly Come Dancing: Adam Peaty ‘struggling to walk’ after gruelling quickstep rehearsals with Katya Jones

Swimmer placed second on the leaderboard during last week’s opening show

Adam Peaty has said that he’s struggling to walk thanks to his gruelling training regime for Strictly Come Dancing.

The Olympian made his dancefloor debut on Saturday (25 September) night, ending up in second place on the leaderboard with 30 points for his cha cha cha with partner Katya Jones.

Appearing on Lorraine on Thursday (30 September), Peaty revealed that he has “very, very, very sore feet” from training for this week’s quickstep.

“I don’t think I can walk today, never mind dance,” he said, adding that the pace of the dance was to blame for his pain.

“This is why my feet hurt so much, because I’ve got to change directions so quickly and I’m always on my tiptoes,” he said. “Literally 95kg going in my toes, so I can’t walk, but we’re nearly there.”

Peaty even compared Strictly to training for the Olympics, saying: “With the Olympics you get five years to prepare, if not 12. [On Strictly],we’ve got a week to prepare, so it’s very intense.

"You can’t let yourself fall out of the mental zone because [Jones] has a go at me and she shouts at me, so it’s very very full on,” he added. “You’ve got to turn up every single day, no matter how tired you are or or how much you got going on in your own life or business or whatever, you’ve still got to turn up.”

Read more about Peaty here.

Strictly will return this weekend, with the celebrities now at risk of being eliminated from the competition.

However, it won’t be Tom Fletcher, as he and partner Amy Dowden have been forced to miss the live show after testing positive for Covid-19.

Strictly Come Dancing continues Saturday 2 October at 6.45pm on BBC One

Additional reporting by Press Association