Olympic Champion Regan Smith Opens Up About Mindset Shift That Saved Her Swimming Career

Heading into the 2024, Regan Smith had been one Olympics, won 3 medals there, won 9 world championship medals, won an NCAA title, and set 3 world records. But none of it was enough to make Smith feel good about her accomplishments in the pool.

Since the 2022 season, Smith has been slowly working on changing how she views her swimming and the success that comes with it. For much of her career, she would enter a race and feel immense pressure to win, to the point that she would derail herself before she even hit the water. Heading into her races in Paris, she was able to see herself as a fan might, as pure entertainment, and with that came the freedom to swim her own race.

Regan walked away from Paris with 3 silver medals in her individual events and 2 gold medals as a part of Team USA relays. Listen to the growth Smith has made as she describes taking control of her swimming and having pride in her accomplishments.

0:00 Regan Smith Introduction
1:34 Having Pride in Olympic Performance
4:40 What Didn't Work at Tokyo, Stanford
10:38 Winning in Ways You Can Control
15:26 Processing Races at Olympics
19:05 100 Fly at Olympic Trials
23:23 100 Back
31:34 Swimming as Entertainment
39:08 200 Fly
49:45 2Fly-2Back Double
54:27 200 Back
59:33 400 Medley Relay
1:09:54 Becoming an Olympic Champion
1:12:04 Training Moving Forward
1:16:30 Partnership with Speedo
1:21:00 Hitting 100 Back World Record Goal Time on Fridge to the Hundredth