Maturity and Experience Guided Regan Smith to Career Year in 2024
Returning home from her second Olympics, Regan Smith needed a respite from the pressure-packed, exhausting buildup to the Paris Games. Her partnership with coach Bob Bowman had yielded a strong performance that included three individual silver medals and two relay golds plus a world record in the 100 backstroke, but Smith knew that jumping back into the intensity of that grind would be detrimental for her long-term success.
“I always took training so seriously, and if I missed one day of practice or if I had a bad practice, I was really hard on myself, and I really beat myself up,” Smith said. “I would be like, ‘Well, I need all of my ducks to be in order, everything to be in order.’ I give everything 100% all the time, and if I don’t, I feel like I’m slacking and I’m lazy. I realized after a certain point that I was just living life on hard mode.”
While her Paris preparation was not as challenging as training for the Tokyo Olympics — that was during a COVID-19 pandemic that delayed the Games by one year and sapped her confidence — Smith had to deal with plenty this year. In late March, Bowman stepped down as head coach at Arizona State and moved to the University of Texas, and over the next three months, his group of professionals bounced between training sites, including Tempe, Austin and Colorado Springs. Given the mental toll of that grind, when Smith was still lacking motivation as summer gave way to fall, she decided, “OK, I’m not going to fight this. I’m going to let the motivation come back naturally, because the last thing I want is to force myself into something and then experience burnout.”
Regan Smith — Photo Courtesy: Andrea Masini / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
For the first time in years, Smith would not be taking swimming seriously, choosing instead to focus on “things that like have really filled my cup.” Weight training would remain consistent, but in the pool, she would train when she wanted to, not forcing herself to swim double workouts or attend Saturday practices.
Deciding she was not ready to move full-time to Austin, she remained based at Arizona State and spent time with her friends on the Sun Devils college team, effectively replicating the college experience she surrendered when deciding to turn professional after one year at Stanford. Joining longtime friend and fellow multi-time Olympic medalist Kate Douglass, Smith traveled to Asia and attended all three stops of the World Cup, prioritizing the experience over high-stakes results.
And almost by accident, she ended up putting together one of the best stretches of her career.
Smith finished in second place overall for the World Cup meets, a tenth behind Douglass, as she achieved nine wins between the backstroke events and the 200 butterfly. She set short course world records in the 100 back during the final two stops in Incheon and Singapore before adding a global standard in the 200 back in Singapore. Breaking records, Smith said, “was not on my radar until Kate broke the 200 breast world record. And then, of course, the competitiveness in me comes out. I’m like, ‘Well, crap, she broke a world record. I want to break world records, too.’
That was a preview for a Short Course World Championships in which Smith shined, winning seven overall medals that included a sweep of the backstroke events and silver in the 200 fly. Even while “trying to detach myself from my results,” Smith felt the itch to return to her record-breaking ways amid a meet that ended up producing 30 global standards, including nine individual marks by American teammate Gretchen Walsh. And during the second half of the meet, Smith got in on the record-breaking fun and the accompanying $25,000 bonus money for each.
Smith knocked off Maggie Mac Neil’s mark on the way to gold in the 50 back, and a day later, she eclipsed her own 100 back standard leading off the U.S. mixed 400 medley relay team. That record did not count because she was racing against men, but she came back on the meet’s last day with three additional global marks: in the 200 back final as she took down Canadian teenage star Summer McIntosh, leading off the U.S. women’s 400 medley relay with an even quicker time than the day before and with a relay team that chopped nearly four seconds off the previous top mark.
Not exactly the haul Smith had in mind when she was planning for a low-key fall. “Close to 10,” she said when assessing her level of surprise. “I don’t know if I could say 10, but I was incredibly pleasantly surprised. But also, when I think about it logically, it makes complete sense. I don’t need to be in insane shape to swim 100 backstroke. I don’t need to be swimming 8k practices every day to swim for 54 seconds.”
Reaching that point in her career where she could comfortably let up the intensity required years of maturation, years largely spent in swimming’s spotlight. “I think it was less physical and more mental,” Smith said. “I think I held myself back performance wise, mentally. I think I’ve always had a lot of talent physically, but I stopped short on the mental side of things. And so I think this has been very, very positive for my mental relationship with swimming. And then I think that’s why I ended up performing so well this fall.”
Paris and Beyond
Prior to that surge of short course success, Smith performed admirably during an Olympic stretch that traditionally defines swimming legacies. Her world record in the 100 back at the U.S. Olympic Trials in June marked a turning point, her first time breaking such a mark in almost five years and the first time she had ever lowered a record held by Australian rival Kaylee McKeown. Then, she was one of only six total Olympians (all swimmers) to leave Paris with five total medals.
Individual gold eluded Smith in Paris as McKeown came from behind to overtake her in the 100 back final, considered Smith’s best chance, and in her later individual events, it took valiant efforts from McIntosh (200 fly) and McKeown (200 back) to beat Smith. However, she became an Olympic champion before the meet was over: she won a gold medal for her efforts in prelims of the mixed 400 medley relay, and then she led off the U.S. women’s dominant effort in their meet-ending medley relay.
Regan Smith at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
And in yet another sign of her sophisticated, thoughtful outlook on the sport, Smith found satisfaction in her efforts. She refused to let historic performances by a pair of superstar rivals define her Olympics; in fact, what bothered her the most in Paris was the portrayal of her meet as a failure because of her three individual silvers.
“Going through Paris, I truly had no qualms and no frustrations with anything. I realized life is too short to constantly be frustrated and feeling like you haven’t given enough to something that you’ve really dedicated your life to,” Smith said.
“Truly, I don’t think there was anything that was within my power that I could have done to have a different outcome. I executed my races so well. I put up times that I was really proud of, and I had a really great mental relationship with the sport during that week, whereas in Tokyo, I was a complete disaster the entire time. So I just saw so many improvements within myself, mentally and physically, with my performances and everything. So I truly did walk away from Paris being like, ‘Wow, I did some really cool things.’”
Now, Smith moves forward with her career with the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles already within her sight, although it is by no means full-speed ahead at this stage. Smith expects to maintain her less-than-100% intensity throughout the 2025 season with career longevity in mind.
“I’m thinking about 2028, and I’m trying to play the long game,” Smith said. “I’m doing what I’m doing right now because I think I know it will help me in the future, but yeah, once I make the transition back to being in full work mode, I don’t know what (the motivation) will be, but I do know that I truly enjoy swimming and I like what I do, so I hope it’ll just be because I actually like to do it.”
Smith expects to remain under Bowman’s guidance for the foreseeable future, and she believes the coach-swimmer relationship between the pair is stronger than ever following a rocky year. Thinking back on her first year-and-a-half with Bowman, Smith described herself as a “yes man” because she “was pretty afraid of Bob.” All that changed in March 2024 when Bowman departed Arizona State just 48 hours after leading the men’s team to a national title, a decision that caught Smith off guard and put her preparation for Paris into flux.
“When all this happened, I think I came out of my shell, because, to be completely truthful, I lost a bit of respect for him, and that’s come back, but I was so mad at him, and just did not treat him as my superior for a little while,” Smith said. “I think he kind of liked to see that other side of me. And so now we’ve reached a very good middle ground, where we’re at now, where I can speak to him candidly. I’m not afraid to come up and talk to him.”
But before she thinks too much about her future, Smith has plenty to celebrate from 2024 and a strong case to call it the best year of her career, rivaling the stretch during her teenage years when she could seemingly do no wrong en route to becoming a world-record holder and world champion. Everything seemed easy and simple then, with Smith encountering no real adversity until the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
From there, it was a long road back, both in the physical task of reaching best times and the mental obstacles of performing her best in the biggest moments and learning how to be proud of her accomplishments. Even if her 2024 results were not as astounding as 2019, the year was plenty meaningful for Smith thanks to the obstacles she overcame and the growth she experienced on the way to her five Paris medals and becoming an Olympic champion.
“In 2018 and 2019, literally everything was sunshine and rainbows,” Smith said. “But I think there is something very special about 2024 because a lot of things were thrown at me that I had to overcome, just me personally, and then the fact that I was able to grow through it and then still perform as well as I did. 2018 and 2019 I think was just literally the perfect storm. I think 2024 is a better story.”
