Editor’s note: This article is part of our “Origin Stories” series, which focuses on athletes’ backstories and topics related to the Summer Olympics.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — After the 2022 World Aquatics Championships in Budapest, Regan Smith returned to her home state of Minnesota feeling dejected. Her first year at Stanford University, her dream school, was not a happy one. In swimming meets, her performance stagnated. In her father’s words, she was “very disappointed” with her performance at worlds, where she won two gold medals but also missed the podium twice. She felt sad. stuck.
“I just swam too much,” she said.
Regan’s father, Paul, could tell she was struggling. He and Regan’s stepmother, Bonnie, decided on the flight back from the World Championships that they wouldn’t force a conversation with Regan, but were prepared to offer guidance if she expressed concerns about continuing at Stanford.
It happened on a quiet, sunny morning at their home in Lakeville, Minnesota. Regan is in the bodega with the family dog, and she starts talking to Paul and Bonnie about being disappointed with her swimming performance and struggling to find motivation. She said she didn’t feel comfortable at Stanford.
Paul agreed.
“This person I see now is a shell of you,” Regan remembers him saying that morning.
The race in Palo Alto, California, went awry from the start. Smith and her father say none of this is the fault of the university or the swim program. This just wasn’t the right place for her. Regan wanted to build a community based on the swim team, but Stanford promoted a mix of athletes and non-athletes on campus. She lives with a random roommate who does homework with a flashlight until the wee hours of the morning, while Regan has to go to bed early and wake up at 5:30 a.m. to go swimming.
“We just keep each other awake,” Smith said.
Smith shot to stardom at the age of 17 when he won two gold medals and broke two world swimming records at the 2019 World Championships, before winning two silver medals and a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics two years later. Yardage drills and little rest between sets. At Stanford, team members swam lower distances than she was used to, and her body didn’t respond well.
“I’m glad I figured it out,” Smith said. “Swimming is not one-size-fits-all.”
But Smith didn’t think she could leave. After all, this is Stanford, a world-renowned university with a historic swimming program. Talking to Paul and Bonnie helped ease her fears.
That conversation was Smith’s first step on a path that reignited her passion for swimming and once again made her look like a gold medal contender at the 2024 Paris Olympics. She decided to forgo her remaining NCAA eligibility and leave Stanford University.
Now 21, she is training on the pro team at Arizona State University under Bob Bowman, the former U.S. Olympic head coach best known for her relationship with Michael Phelps (Michael Phelps) is known for his collaborations. She had no doubt it was the right decision.
“I just love what I’m doing,” she said in an interview outside the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, where she trained for much of November. “It’s a really good environment. I don’t even have to think about being motivated.”
Regan Smith competes in the 2023 World Championship. “I love what I’m doing,” she said of her training with legendary Arizona State coach Bob Bowman. (Yamazaki Yuichi/AFP Getty Images)
Wearing pink goggles and a black-and-white swimming cap, 7-year-old Regan Smith lined up for a simulated race in the middle lane at Foss Swim School. When her coach blew the whistle, she propelled herself forward with a smooth, powerful stroke in the 50-yard butterfly.
After Smith’s turn — which wasn’t as serious as her stroke — the instructor, who was standing in the water, turned to her father, her mouth agape.
“Paul!” she said, pointing to his young daughter. “She’s fast!”
Indeed. When she finished, the other girls had half a lap left.
“I realized after that how much I love winning,” Smith said with a laugh.
Regan’s older sister, Brenna, joined the local club swim team, and Regan wanted to follow in her footsteps. Paul was curious about the time commitment, but after weeks of arguing with Regan, his parents relented.
Needless to say, the ROI is great.
“Certainly the credit goes to my oldest sister because I just wanted to imitate her, like every younger sibling,” Regan said.
Smith continued playing other sports before devoting her full attention to swimming at the age of 13, when she moved to the whitewater swimming team. From there, she began training six days a week under coach Mike Parratto, who previously coached 12-time Olympic medalist Jenny Thompson. Parlato quickly saw Smith’s talent. Early in their time together, the coach told Smith’s father that her first American record would be in the 200 backstroke, and then she would break the 100 backstroke mark.
These predictions turned out to be accurate. Smith’s breakthrough came at the 2019 World Championships, her third major international competition. At the age of 17, she set a world record in the 200m backstroke on her way to winning the gold medal, and then led the 400m medley relay with a world record in the 100m backstroke.
“A lot of people ask me, ‘Who are the new stars we can look forward to in 2020?'” commentator Rowdy Gaines said on NBC after watching Smith compete in the 200-meter backstroke. “Well, you just found her.”
Everything is in perfect order. She was in her prime and about to compete in the Olympics. Her father now compared her to Secretariat: she was blinded. Nothing seemed to be able to stop her.
Then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Smith hasn’t trained well during the pandemic — “Obviously, no one’s really training well,” she said — and she’s found it hard to motivate herself during shorter-than-usual pool time. After the craziness of the summer of 2019, when she was expected to become an Olympic star, she felt vulnerable.
The Olympics were postponed for a year, and when Smith returned to competition in the fall of 2020, she was no longer herself. Physically, she didn’t have as much of a training base as she normally would. Mentally, her confidence was eroded.
“She had world records in the 100m and 200m back, and she had a bullseye on her back and she knew she wasn’t in good shape to defend that record, and I think it ate her alive,” her father said.
Smith still made the Olympic team for the first time and qualified in the 100m backstroke and 200m butterfly. But the 200-meter backstroke obviously did not appear on her schedule. She finished third at the Olympic trials, three-tenths of a second behind the team and more than three seconds off her then-world record.
Although Smith won three Olympic medals in 2021, the Tokyo Games brought more swimming events that were not up to her standards. She was excited about winning silver in the 200m butterfly, but her 100m backstroke didn’t go the way she wanted in both the individual event and the 400m medley relay final.
“I completely collapsed under the pressure,” she said. “I think I was too young and too ill-equipped to deal with it.”
Regan Smith heads into the Tokyo run-up as a gold medal favorite after a stellar performance at the 2019 World Championships. She won silver and bronze medals in two individual events. (Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
At the same time, Australian star Kaylee McKeown swept the Tokyo backstroke program. She now holds the 100-meter and 200-meter backstroke records that once belonged to Smith.
Two years later, Smith called the Tokyo Olympics “a wonderful lesson.” But she was immediately in trouble afterward. After Worlds in 2019, her trajectory seemed clear, but it suddenly veered off course.
“I’m in pain sometimes,” Smith said. “Everything was perfect for me. I had these two world records, I was the favorite for Olympic gold in two events and the favorite for relay gold in the third event, and then COVID happened and everything got messed up. ”
The year at Stanford brought further struggles. She refuses to look at swimming news or McKeown’s time competing for Australia in the wake of the pandemic and Olympic disappointment.
“I don’t want to know because it scares me,” Smith said.
Smith’s self-confidence was at a low point when she had a heart-to-heart with her father and stepmother that led to her leaving Stanford. When deciding where to go next, she initially had two choices: Arizona State under Bowman, or Florida State.
Smith never even talked to the Florida coaches. She got on the phone with Bowman, and from the first conversation, she was sold.
“It was exactly what I wanted,” she said.
Smith, wearing a white Arizona swimming cap, completes the 200-meter backstroke during the 2023 World Championship trials. She ran 2:03.80, which wasn’t her best time of 2:03.35, but it was the first time since 2019 that she was under the 2:04 mark. When she saw No. 1 on the scoreboard, her face lit up with excitement and maybe a little excitement. Somewhat relieved.
To her, the swim symbolizes rediscovering her place in the sport.
“It’s been a very long and hard road, but I finally feel like I’m back there,” she said. “I’m that swimmer again. I’m me again.”
Smith credits ASU with helping her achieve that goal. Practice was going well, and she loved the energy between the pro team and the collegiate swimmers, with whom she grew closer. Even though Smith was unable to compete at the NCAA level, she still felt welcomed by ASU swimmers. Smith also hopes to start taking classes in school after the Paris Olympics.
In the water, she trusted Bowman. She appreciated his directness and not overcomplicating his approach. Some swimmers like to understand the science behind the training they’re doing, but Smith prefers to simply follow the coach’s instructions.
“He had a big swimming brain and I wasn’t even trying to understand it,” she said. “I just do what he tells me and off I go. It’s almost like I’m a puppet, but not bad.”
Regan Smith and Kaylee McKeown hug after the 50m backstroke final at the 2023 World Championships. McKeown beat Smith by 0.03 seconds to win the gold medal. (Adam Pretty/Getty Images)
Smith’s resurgence means the two backstroke events at the 2024 Olympics could be a close contest. McKeown, who has dominated the backstroke event since the Tokyo Olympics, will be very strong and Smith admits she considers competing against the Aussie star quite a bit. But she no longer avoids looking at McKeown’s results as she once did.
“I look at what she’s done this year now and I really use it as motivation because I know I have the same level of talent and I put in the work,” Smith said.
Her father added: “I think Raegan enjoys it because she likes having a target on Kelly’s back and she likes that she has one more year under Bob to continue to get back to where she wants to be. . ”
That doesn’t mean there aren’t obstacles. Smith was feeling good about her performance at the U.S. Open in late November and early December, sweeping both backstroke and 200-meter butterfly events, but she tested positive for mononucleosis shortly after. As she fought through her illness, the intrusive thoughts returned to her mind. Sometimes she feels good about her goals. On other days, she worries that time out of the water will prevent her from returning to peak form.
“It’s really hard to stay positive when I’m not at my best, knowing that Paris is only seven months away,” she said. “Honestly, it’s a constant battle.”
Overall, though, she’s in a better position than she was at Stanford. When she moved to Arizona, she began recording the moves she made during swimming practices, in part because she found them so creative and fun. Sometimes she adds notes about things she did well.
These pages remind her that she has put in the work. When her body touches the water, all she has to do is swim.
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(Pictured above is Regan Smith’s gold medal in the 200m butterfly at this month’s U.S. Open: Jacob Kupferman/Getty Images)
