Regan Smith will compete in her second Summer season Olympics subsequent month with a brand new mindset, one that can hopefully assist the 22-year-old American swimmer earn her first Olympic gold medal.
Smith’s journey to Paris noticed her medal in three particular person occasions on the U.S. Olympic Crew Trials in Indianapolis final month. She broke the world file within the ladies’s 100-meter backstroke, reclaiming the title she beforehand had in 2019 when she broke the file at simply 17.
Regan Smith competes within the ladies’s 200-meter butterfly in the course of the U.S. Olympic Crew Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on June 19, 2024. (Al Bello/Getty Pictures)
After the occasion, Smith stated it was a “very long time coming.” For the previous a number of years, the Olympic medalist had seemingly struggled with the psychological facet of her sport, which held her again from seeing the identical success she as soon as did 5 years in the past.
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However one thing modified in Smith’s strategy, and he or she’ll be going for gold within the ladies’s 100-meter and 200-meter backstroke and the 200-meter butterfly.
Chatting with Fox Information Digital, Smith opened up about her psychological well being journey.
“I, for a very long time, I drank the Kool-Support of the stigma round psychological well being. I did not need to have a sports activities psychologist. I didn’t need to speak about it. I assumed you have been weak, or I assumed I used to be weak. And so the sentiments that I had, I attempted to shove inside and ignore them, and it festered and exploded. And I had a very onerous couple of years as an athlete.”
However in the future, that modified.
“I sort of confronted the music, regarded within the mirror and was like, ‘You are not weak for accepting assist. Why do not you speak to somebody and see the place it goes?'”
Regan Smith is seen after the ladies’s 100-meter backstroke semifinal on the U.S. Olympic Crew Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on June 17, 2024. (Maddie Meyer/Getty Pictures)
And so Smith started the seek for a sports activities psychologist who she felt was the fitting match. And in October, she met Emily Klueh.
“She has taken my swimming utterly to the subsequent stage,” Smith stated.
OLYMPIC MEDALIST REGAN SMITH WEARS USA SWIM CAP WITH PRIDE AHEAD OF PARIS: ‘I’M SO PROUD TO BE AMERICAN’
Klueh swam collegiately at Michigan and swam for the nationwide staff for 10 years. In 2023, she joined USA Swimming as supervisor of psychological well being and emotional wellness. Smith praised Klueh’s factual and logical strategy to the game, which she credit with turning round her efficiency within the pool.
“One factor that she at all times says to me, it is sort of her mantra with me, she’s identical to, ‘Take a look at the details of the scenario.’ And that was so eye-opening to me as a result of, as an athlete, as a swimmer, I really feel like I can look via issues with a really emotional lens. I believe that is the place nerves come from, that is the place nervousness comes from, and that is in the end what leads us to choking, to be blunt, and to not carry out on the stage you are able to acting at.”
“She simply did such a wonderful job at dumbing all the things down for me, which sounds foolish, nevertheless it’s lots simpler to swim quick and put up performances that you simply’re happy with when issues are simplified. And I could not work out how to try this till she got here into my life,” she continued. “And so I am so extremely grateful, and I believe I am in a position to take a look at swimming with pleasure now as an alternative of tension. And I believe pleasure and nervousness sort of go hand in hand, however it may be very troublesome to separate the 2. I by no means might till I began to work together with her.”
Smith additionally spoke about one other issue that improved her psychological sport.
Regan Smith reacts after setting the world file within the ladies’s 100-meter backstroke ultimate in the course of the U.S. Olympic Crew Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on June 18, 2024. (Maddie Meyer/Getty Pictures)
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Chatting with Fox Information Digital on behalf of pet diet model Nulo, Smith stated she adopted a cat named Roo from an animal shelter in Arizona throughout a troublesome time in her coaching this 12 months. She had fallen ailing simply months earlier than from the Olympic trials and was pressured to cease coaching.
“I used to be so down within the dumps. I used to be like, ‘That is an Olympic 12 months, and right here I’m sitting on the sofa, exhausted when I attempt to go get groceries. Like, how am I speculated to go to the Olympics this summer season? That is hopeless. I do not know what I am speculated to do.’”
That’s when her household and sports activities psychologist instructed that an emotional assist animal may be a great resolution.
“She is absolutely the sweetest factor, and he or she obtained me out of that tough patch, and he or she was such an unbelievable assist system. And so after I was nonetheless sort of on the come-up recovering from my illness, and I’d come house from apply simply in tears as a result of I simply wished to be again [at] 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 Gasoline Unimaginable marketing campaign aimed toward highlighting the connection between athletes and their pets on the journey to the highest.
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