Former swimming phenom Regan Smith finally embarks on his quest for glory

She was a girl then, a woman now. Five years ago, Regan Smith put her hand to her mouth, slack jawed, in shock when she saw what she had done in the pool. Tuesday evening in Indianapolis, during his reunion with the world record in the 100 backstroke, his mouth let slip the epithet of someone who has experienced things.

“Fuck yeah,” she said, looking at the Lucas Oil Stadium scoreboard that showed a time of 57.13 seconds next to her name.

“It’s been a long time,” she said later, describing the moment. “You know, like it’s about time.” So I was excited. And the feeling of having it tonight compared to five years ago was so different. I was just completely crazy.

To find out where this comes from, let’s go back to a steamy July night in South Korea in 2019, when the Smith family’s lives changed in real time. Seventeen-year-old Regan Smith broke Missy Franklin’s world record in the 200-meter backstroke at the world championships, and the machinery of sudden fame was set in motion. Within minutes, officials from World Aquatics and USA Swimming were there where her parents sat in the stands, collecting contacts and biographical information on the sport’s new It Girl.

Regan added the world record in the 100 backstroke two evenings later while leading the American medley relay. She was small but surprisingly athletic, possessing perfect technique, riding a wave that began with four age group records in a single competition at age 10. Then there she lit the fire of a Korean swimming pool, soaring from ascending star to the finish. The future seemed limitless.

“It was very easy, I had no pressure on me,” she said. “I was always the youngest. No one really expected much from me, and so it was so easy to go into races being fearless and not really caring about the outcome.

And then, shortly after arrival, everything crashed. Nothing was easy anymore.

“It ate her alive,” says Paul Smith, Regan’s father. “She felt a target on her back and she didn’t like it. I didn’t quite understand how much she felt it.

It was debilitating enough that in December 2019, Smith told her Riptide (Minn.) swim team coach, Mike Parratto, that she no longer wanted to swim the 200 backstroke. The fastest woman in history in this event wanted nothing to do with it.

She stopped talking to Paul at competitions about his race strategy, and stopped watching replays of those races with him. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, demolishing his routine and what was left of his confidence.

At the 2021 Olympic Trials in Omaha, everything was work. Regan made the team in the 100 backstroke, but her face expressed only relief, not joy.

“The look on his face after that race,” Paul Smith said, “it was sad.”

While walking to the pool for the 200 back later in the competition, Paul offered some rah-rah words of encouragement. She stopped, put her hand on his shoulder and said she just wanted to have fun.

“It was she who said: I’m going to get beat and I don’t care. I accepted it“, remembers Paul Smith.

Sure enough, the world record holder finished third in the United States, failing to qualify for Tokyo in that event. Even winning two silver medals and a bronze at these Summer Games felt a little hollow as she continued in vain to search for her best backstroke performance.

“I was at my lowest point in terms of confidence,” Smith said. “I just didn’t want to be there. I wasn’t excited. I had no confidence in myself. I wanted other people to do it because I thought they would be better off doing it than me. And it’s so sad to think about it now because like I just said, I always had it, but I just didn’t do it here.”

After an unhappy swimming season at Stanford in 2021-22, Smith left to join Bob Bowman’s pro group at Arizona State. His rigorous training suited him. She began working with a sports psychologist. Everything started to fall into place.

“It was a journey of fight, scratch and claw to get back into the shape she needed,” Paul Smith said. “To get that confidence and swagger back.”

The swagger started to return last year. Smith dominated the backstroke events at the U.S. championships, but traveled to Fukuoka for the world championships and finished second to Australian Kaylee McKeown in the 50, 100 and 200. McKeown also won the records in the world of 100 and 200 at Smith in 2023.

“There were many years after 2019 where I thought I would never do this again,” Regan said Tuesday night.

In October 2023, McKeown lowered his own world mark in the 100m to 57.33. In 2024, she and Smith continued to post record season times – not records, but simply benchmarks for who swam faster. Regan closed the gap.

In May, Smith reinstated his own American record at 57.51. Then, earlier this month, McKeown swam fast at the Australian Olympic trials, but didn’t break his own world records. Smith had the opportunity to regain the lead.

She seized it with spectacular brilliance, clocking a lifetime best of 57.47 in the semi-final before shattering the world record by two tenths in the final. She is expected to attempt to set the 200m world record of 2:03.14 later this week, and she is also a prohibitive favorite to win the 200 fly here.

The two backstroke queens are on a Parisian collision course that could be the best showdown of the Games in any sport. Gold medals will be on the line for Smith and McKeown in these events and likely in the medley relay as well.

“I think what I really struggle with is separating emotion from logic,” Smith said. “And I think the best of the best, they’re able to stay logical in the most difficult times, and that’s what I’ve always struggled with. Because when logic goes out and emotion comes in , that’s where you choke, and I did it over and over again because I let my emotions take over, and I think I’m really starting to do a good job of being logical and knowing. what I’m capable of and knowing what I’m doing in practice, and knowing my capabilities, and I think that’s what really got me to this point.”

From girl to woman, from emotional to logical, from everything being easy to understand to how difficult it really is… Regan Smith’s five-year journey from world record setting has come full circle.