U.S. swimmer Regan Smith is an Olympic medalist, a world report holder, a world champion and even an adoring cat proprietor. However the 22-year-old former Stanford swimmer may finest describe herself as a proud American.
Smith certified for the 2024 Summer season Olympics in Paris after her dominating efficiency within the ladies’s 100-meter and 200-meter backstroke and the 200-meter fly on the current U.S. Olympic Swimming Crew Trials in Indianapolis. She set the world report within the 100-meter.
Regan Smith appears to be like on after the ladies’s 100-meter backstroke semifinal on the U.S. Olympic Swimming Crew Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on June 17, 2024. (Maddie Meyer/Getty Photos)
She described it as a “gratifying” expertise, one which has once more given her the prospect to put on a swim cap with the American flag alongside her identify.
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Forward of her second look within the Summer season Olympics, Smith advised Fox Information Digital that she first obtained the chance to characterize the U.S. when she was 15.
“It virtually moved me to tears,” she mentioned.
“I had such a robust sense of delight, and I used to be getting up behind the blocks, and I wasn’t simply swimming for me, I used to be swimming for your entire nation behind me, who had my again and who wished me to succeed.”
In Smith’s retelling of this second, she didn’t make point out of medals or data, simply the delight she felt.
“It was simply unbelievable to swim for one thing that was a lot greater than your self. And I believe that helped take a number of the stress off of me as properly, as a result of I used to be like, ‘I simply need to do that to make my nation proud.’ It is simply so simple as that.”
Regan Smith prepares to compete within the ladies’s 100-meter backstroke semifinal on the Olympic Video games in Tokyo on July 26, 2021. (Tom Pennington/Getty Photos)
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Smith took her skills to the Olympics for the primary time on the 2020 Summer season Video games in Tokyo. She gained silver within the 200-meter butterfly and bronze within the 100-meter backstroke. She’ll have the prospect to earn her first gold medal when she competes in three particular person occasions subsequent month in Paris.
However for Smith, doing so would imply a lot greater than private achievement.
“I’m such a patriotic lady. I like America a lot. I’m such an American lady to my core, severely,” she advised Fox Information digital with a smile.
“It by no means will get previous, really. Every summer season once I’ve gotten to place the American flag cap on my head and characterize it, I’m so unbelievably proud. And each time I will stand on prime of a podium and put my hand on my coronary heart and listen to the nationwide anthem play over your entire aquatic heart, it’s extremely particular. It by no means will get previous. I might say it form of positive aspects significance and worth every time that it occurs for me. And so this summer season goes to be no totally different. I am simply going to be so unbelievably excited to place that cap on and go abroad and characterize the most effective nation within the historical past of the world, I would say. And it is simply – it is great. It is actually, actually great. And I am so proud to be American each time that I compete for my nation.”
Regan Smith competes within the ladies’s 200-meter butterfly throughout the Olympic Video games in Tokyo on July 27, 2021. (Tom Pennington/Getty Photos)
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Chatting with Fox Information Digital on behalf of her partnership with pet diet model Nulo, Smith spoke about her assist system again residence, which incorporates her adopted cat, Roo.
Smith adopted Roo from an animal shelter in Arizona throughout a troublesome time this yr. She had fallen sick simply months earlier than the Olympic trials and was pressured to cease coaching. Her household and sports activities psychologist recommended that an emotional assist animal could be an excellent resolution.
“She is absolutely the sweetest factor, and she or he obtained me out of that tough patch, and she or he was such an unbelievable assist system. And so once I was nonetheless form of on the come-up recovering from my illness, and I might come residence from follow simply in tears as a result of I simply wished to be again [to] the extent that I used to be at training-wise, she would greet me on the door.”
Nulo has partnered with eight athletes, together with fellow Olympians Simone Biles and Caeleb Dressel, as part of the Gas Unbelievable marketing campaign aimed toward highlighting the connection between athletes and their pets on their journey to the highest.
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