U.S. swimmer Regan Smith is an Olympic medalist, a world document holder, a world champion and even an adoring cat proprietor. But the 22-year-old former Stanford swimmer would possibly greatest describe herself as a proud American.
Smith certified for the 2024 Summer 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 Team Trials in Indianapolis. She set the world document within the 100-meter.
Regan Smith seems on after the ladies’s 100-meter backstroke semifinal on the U.S. Olympic Swimming Team Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on June 17, 2024. (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
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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Ahead of her second look within the Summer Olympics, Smith advised Fox News Digital that she first bought the chance to symbolize the U.S. when she was 15.
“It virtually moved me to tears,” she stated.
“I had such a robust sense of satisfaction, 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 complete nation behind me, who had my again and who needed me to succeed.”
In Smith’s retelling of this second, she didn’t make point out of medals or information, simply the satisfaction she felt.
“It was simply unimaginable to swim for one thing that was a lot greater than your self. And I feel that helped take a number of the strain off of me as nicely, as a result of I used to be like, ‘I simply need to do that to make my nation proud.’ It’s simply so simple as that.”
Regan Smith prepares to compete within the ladies’s 100-meter backstroke semifinal on the Olympic Games in Tokyo on July 26, 2021. (Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
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Smith took her abilities to the Olympics for the primary time on the 2020 Summer 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.
But for Smith, doing so would imply a lot greater than private achievement.
“I’m such a patriotic lady. I really like America a lot. I’m such an American lady to my core, severely,” she advised Fox News digital with a smile.
“It by no means will get previous, really. Each summer time when I’ve gotten to place the American flag cap on my head and symbolize it, I’m so unbelievably proud. And each time I’m capable of stand on high of a podium and put my hand on my coronary heart and listen to the nationwide anthem play over your complete aquatic middle, it’s totally particular. It by no means will get previous. I’d say it sort of features significance and worth every time that it occurs for me. And so this summer time goes to be no totally different. I’m simply going to be so unbelievably excited to place that cap on and go abroad and symbolize the very best nation within the historical past of the world, I’d say. And it is simply – it is fantastic. It’s actually, actually fantastic. And I’m so proud to be American each time that I compete for my nation.”
Regan Smith competes within the ladies’s 200-meter butterfly through the Olympic Games in Tokyo on July 27, 2021. (Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
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Speaking to Fox News Digital on behalf of her partnership with pet diet model Nulo, Smith spoke about her help system again dwelling, which incorporates her adopted cat, Roo.
Smith adopted Roo from an animal shelter in Arizona throughout a tough time this 12 months. 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 help animal is perhaps answer.
“She is absolutely the sweetest factor, and he or she bought me out of that tough patch, and he or she was such an unimaginable help system. And so after I was nonetheless sort of on the come-up recovering from my illness, and I’d come dwelling from observe simply in tears as a result of I simply needed 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 Fuel Incredible marketing campaign geared toward highlighting the connection between athletes and their pets on their journey to the highest.
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