Regan Smith will compete in her second Summer Olympics subsequent month with a brand new mindset, one that may 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 Team 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 through the U.S. Olympic Team Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on June 19, 2024. (Al Bello/Getty Images)
After the occasion, Smith mentioned 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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But one thing modified in Smith’s method, and he or she’ll be going for gold within the ladies’s 100-meter and 200-meter backstroke and the 200-meter butterfly.
Speaking to Fox News Digital, Smith opened up about her psychological well being journey.
“I, for a very long time, I drank the Kool-Aid of the stigma round psychological well being. I did not wish to have a sports activities psychologist. I didn’t wish to speak about it. I believed you had been weak, or I believed I used to be weak. And so the emotions that I had, I attempted to shove inside and ignore them, and it festered and exploded. And I had a extremely arduous couple of years as an athlete.”
But someday, that modified.
“I sort of confronted the music, appeared within the mirror and was like, ‘You’re 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 Team Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on June 17, 2024. (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
And so Smith started the seek for a sports activities psychologist who she felt was the precise match. And in October, she met Emily Klueh.
“She has taken my swimming utterly to the subsequent stage,” Smith mentioned.
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 crew 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 method to the game, which she credit with turning round her efficiency within the pool.
“One factor that she all the time says to me, it is sort of her mantra with me, she’s similar to, ‘Look on 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 superb job at dumbing every part down for me, which sounds foolish, nevertheless it’s rather a lot simpler to swim quick and put up performances that you just’re pleased 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’m so extremely grateful, and I believe I’m ready to take a look at swimming with pleasure now as a substitute of tension. And I believe pleasure and nervousness sort of go hand in hand, however it may be very tough to separate the 2. I by no means may 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 closing through the U.S. Olympic Team Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on June 18, 2024. (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
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Speaking to Fox News Digital on behalf of pet vitamin model Nulo, Smith mentioned she adopted a cat named Roo from an animal shelter in Arizona throughout a tough time in her coaching this yr. She had fallen in poor health 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, ‘This is an Olympic yr, and right here I’m sitting on the sofa, exhausted when I attempt to go get groceries. Like, how am I purported to go to the Olympics this summer time? This is hopeless. I do not know what I’m purported to do.’”
That’s when her household and sports activities psychologist urged that an emotional help animal is perhaps an excellent 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 unimaginable help system. And so once I was nonetheless sort of on the come-up recovering from my illness, and I might come house from apply simply in tears as a result of I simply needed 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 Fuel Incredible marketing campaign aimed toward highlighting the connection between athletes and their pets on the journey to the highest.
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