Editor’s notice: This text is a part of our “Origin Tales” sequence, specializing in the backstories of athletes and matters across the Summer season Olympics.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — After the 2022 World Aquatics Championships in Budapest, Regan Smith returned to her dwelling state of Minnesota feeling damaged. She hadn’t loved her first 12 months at Stanford, her dream faculty. At swim competitions, her occasions had stagnated. And she or he was, in her dad’s phrases, “grotesquely disillusioned” by her efficiency at worlds, the place she received two gold medals but additionally missed the rostrum twice. She felt unhappy. Caught.
“I used to be simply so over swimming,” she mentioned.
Regan’s father, Paul, might inform she was struggling. He and Regan’s stepmother, Bonnie, had selected the flight again from the world championships that they wouldn’t pressure a dialog with Regan, however they’d be ready to supply steering if she expressed concern about persevering with at Stanford.
That occurred on a quiet, sunny morning at their home in Lakeville, Minn. Regan was within the wine room with the household canine, and she or he started to speak to Paul and Bonnie about being disillusioned together with her swimming performances and struggling to really feel motivated. She mentioned she didn’t really feel like herself at Stanford.
Paul agreed.
“This person who I’m proper now could be a shell of who you might be,” Regan remembers him saying that morning.
In Palo Alto, Calif., the match was off from the start. None of that was the college’s or swimming program’s fault, Smith and her dad say. It simply wasn’t the fitting place for her. Regan needed extra of a group primarily based across the swim crew, however Stanford preaches mixing athletes and non-athletes on campus. She lived with a random roommate who was up till the early hours of the morning doing homework by flashlight, whereas Regan needed to go to mattress early and be up at 5:30 a.m. for swimming.
“We have been simply holding one another awake on a regular basis,” Smith mentioned.
Smith, who emerged as a star with two gold medals and two world-record swims on the 2019 world championships as a 17-year-old and two years later received two silver medals and a bronze on the Tokyo Olympics, grew up with high-yardage practices and little relaxation between units. At Stanford, the crew swam decrease yardage than she was used to, and her physique wasn’t responding effectively.
“I’m glad I figured that out,” Smith mentioned. “Swimming isn’t one-size-fits-all.”
Smith didn’t suppose she might go away, although. This was Stanford, in spite of everything, a world-renowned college with a historic swimming program. The dialog with Paul and Bonnie helped dispel her fears.
That dialog was Smith’s first step on a path that has reignited her ardour for swimming and as soon as once more made her appear to be a gold-medal contender on the 2024 Olympics in Paris. She determined to forgo her remaining NCAA eligibility and left Stanford.
Now 21, she’s coaching with Arizona State’s professional group underneath Bob Bowman, a former U.S. Olympic head coach finest identified for his work with Michael Phelps. She has no doubts it was the fitting resolution.
“I simply love what I do now,” she mentioned throughout an interview outdoors the Olympic Coaching Middle in Colorado Springs, the place she educated for many of November. “It’s simply an excellent surroundings to be in. I don’t even have to consider feeling motivated.”
Regan Smith competing on the 2023 world championships. “I simply love what I do now,” she says of her coaching underneath legendary coach Bob Bowman at ASU. (Yuichi Yamazaki / AFP through Getty Pictures)
Carrying pink goggles and a black-and-white swim cap, 7-year-old Regan Smith lined up in a center lane for a mock meet at Foss Swim Faculty. When the coach blew a whistle, she propelled herself ahead with easy, highly effective strokes all through a 50-yard butterfly race.
After Smith’s flip — which was not as superior as her stroke — a coach standing within the water turned towards her father, her mouth agape.
“Paul!” she mentioned, pointing at his younger daughter. “She’s quick!”
Certainly she was. The opposite ladies had half a lap left by the point she completed.
“I spotted after that how a lot I like to win,” Smith mentioned, laughing.
Regan’s older sister, Brenna, had joined an area membership swim crew, and Regan needed to comply with in her footsteps. Paul questioned concerning the time dedication, however after weeks and weeks of arguments with Regan, the mother and father relented.
For sure, the return on funding has been good.
“I owe it to my oldest sister, for positive, as a result of I simply needed to repeat her, like each youthful sibling does,” Regan mentioned.
Smith continued to play different sports activities and didn’t put all her vitality into swimming till she was 13, when she switched golf equipment to Riptide Swim Group. That’s when she started coaching six days every week underneath coach Mike Parratto, who beforehand coached 12-time Olympic medalist Jenny Thompson. Parratto shortly noticed Smith’s expertise. Early of their time collectively, the coach instructed Smith’s father that her first American file would come within the 200-meter backstroke after which she’d break the 100-meter backstroke mark.
These predictions proved correct. Smith had her breakout on the 2019 world championships, her third main worldwide meet. At 17, she set a world file within the 200-meter backstroke en path to gold, then led off the 400-meter medley relay with a world-record 100-meter backstroke time.
“So many have requested me, ‘Who’s the brand new vibrant, shiny star that we are able to look to (for) 2020?’” commentator Rowdy Gaines mentioned on the NBC telecast after watching Smith’s 200-meter backstroke. “Properly, you simply discovered her.”
All the pieces was lining up completely. She was peaking heading into the Olympics. Her dad compares her now to Secretariat: She had blinders on. Seemingly nothing might cease her.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
Smith wasn’t coaching effectively in the course of the pandemic — “Clearly, nobody actually was,” she mentioned — and she or he discovered it exhausting to encourage herself for the shorter-than-normal pool time she had entry to. She was anticipated to be an Olympic star after her monster 2019 summer season, however she felt susceptible.
The Olympics acquired pushed again a 12 months, and when Smith returned to competitors in fall 2020, she wasn’t herself. Bodily, she hadn’t constructed up as a lot of a coaching base as she usually would have. Mentally, her confidence was sapped.
“Having that world file within the 100 and 200 again with a bull’s-eye on her again and understanding she was not in form to defend it, I feel it ate her alive,” her dad mentioned.
Smith nonetheless made her first Olympic crew, qualifying within the 100-meter backstroke and 200-meter butterfly. However the 200-meter backstroke was notably absent from her schedule. She completed third within the occasion on the Olympic Trials, lacking the crew by three-tenths of a second, and was greater than three seconds slower than her then-world-record time.
Although Smith received three Olympic medals in 2021, the Tokyo Video games introduced extra swims less than her requirements. She was thrilled together with her silver-medal swim within the 200-meter butterfly, however her 100-meter backstroke didn’t go how she needed, each within the particular person occasion and the 400-meter medley relay closing.
“I simply fully crumbled underneath that stress,” she mentioned. “I feel I used to be too younger and too ill-equipped to take care of that on the time.”
Regan Smith went into the Tokyo run-up as a gold-medal favourite after her efficiency on the 2019 world championships. She left with a silver and a bronze in her two particular person occasions. (Tom Pennington / Getty Pictures)
In the meantime, Australian sensation Kaylee McKeown swept the backstroke occasions in Tokyo. She now owns the 100- and 200-meter backstroke data that when belonged to Smith.
Two years eliminated, Smith calls the Tokyo Video games “an exquisite lesson.” However she struggled within the instant aftermath. Her trajectory had appeared clear after her 2019 worlds, however all of the sudden it was off.
“I might be so bitter typically,” Smith mentioned. “I had it so good. I set these two world data, I used to be the Olympic gold-medal favourite in two occasions and a relay favourite for a gold medal in a 3rd occasion, after which COVID occurred and simply f—ed all the things up.”
The 12 months at Stanford introduced additional struggles. And after the pandemic and Olympic disappointment, she refused to take a look at swimming information or the occasions McKeown was placing up for Australia.
“I didn’t need to know as a result of it scared me,” Smith mentioned.
Smith’s self-belief was at a low when she and her dad and stepmother had their heart-to-heart that led to her leaving Stanford. When deciding the place to go subsequent, she began with two choices: Arizona State underneath Bowman, or Florida.
Smith by no means even spoke to the Florida coaches. She arrange a name with Bowman, and from that first discuss, she was offered.
“It simply aligned completely with what I needed,” she mentioned.
Carrying a white Arizona State swim cap, Smith reached for the end within the 200-meter backstroke on the 2023 world championship trials. She had gone 2:03.80, not fairly her finest time of two:03.35, however her first time underneath the two:04 barrier since 2019. When she noticed her first-place time on the scoreboard, her face glowed with elation and maybe a little bit of aid.
In her eyes, the swim was symbolic of refinding her place within the sport.
“It was a really lengthy and grueling highway, however I lastly really feel like I’m at that degree once more,” she mentioned. “I’m that swimmer once more. I’m me once more.”
Smith credit Arizona State with serving to her get there. Coaching has gone effectively, and she or he likes the dynamic inside the professional group and faculty swimmers, with whom she’s grown shut. Although Smith can’t compete in NCAA meets, she nonetheless feels welcomed by the collegiate swimmers at Arizona State. Smith additionally hopes to start out taking courses on the faculty after the Paris Olympics.
Within the water, she has full belief in Bowman. She appreciates that he’s direct and doesn’t over-complicate practices. Some swimmers like understanding the science behind the coaching they’re doing, however Smith prefers merely following her coach’s directions.
“He has a giant swim mind, and I don’t even attempt to perceive it,” she mentioned. “I simply do what he tells me, and I’m going. It’s virtually like I’m a puppet, however not in a nasty approach.”
Regan Smith and Kaylee McKeown embrace after the 50-meter backstroke closing on the 2023 world championships. McKeown beat Smith for gold by 0.03 seconds. (Adam Fairly / Getty Pictures)
Smith’s resurgence means there’s potential for a titanic battle in each backstroke occasions on the 2024 Olympics. McKeown, who has dominated the backstroke occasions since Tokyo, will probably be formidable, and Smith acknowledges she thinks about racing the Australian star an honest quantity. However she now not avoids McKeown’s meet outcomes like she used to.
“I now take a look at the issues she’s been doing this 12 months, and I actually use it as motivation as a result of I do know I’ve that very same degree of expertise in me and I put within the work as effectively,” Smith mentioned.
Added her dad: “Regan, I feel, relishes it as a result of she loves that the goal is on Kaylee’s again, and she or he loves that she’s acquired yet another 12 months underneath Bob to proceed to construct again into the form of form she needs to be in.”
That doesn’t imply there haven’t been roadblocks. Smith felt nice about her swims on the U.S. Open in late November and early December, the place she swept the 2 backstroke occasions and the 200-meter butterfly, however she examined constructive for mononucleosis shortly after. As she has labored by her illness, intrusive ideas have as soon as once more discovered their approach into her thoughts. Some days, she feels good about her targets. On different days, she worries her day trip of the water will forestall her from getting again into peak form.
“It’s been actually exhausting to remain constructive after I’m not capable of be at my finest, understanding that Paris is simply seven months away,” she mentioned. “It’s actually an ongoing battle.”
General, although, she’s in a greater house than she was at Stanford. When she moved to Arizona, she started journaling what units she did at swimming practices, partially due to how inventive and enjoyable she discovered them. Some days, she provides a notice about one thing she did effectively.
The pages remind her that she’s put within the work. That when her physique hits the water, all she has to do is swim.
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(Prime photograph of Regan Smith together with her gold medal from the 200-meter butterfly at this month’s U.S. Open Championships: Jacob Kupferman / Getty Pictures)
