INDIANAPOLIS — Not all world records are equal. They might seem like they’d all be uniformly awesome in an uncomplicated way, but they don’t all feel like it. Not to Regan Smith, at least.
Five years ago, when Smith broke the world record in the women’s 100-meter backstroke at the 2019 world championships, it felt … kind of easy. So much of swimming was back then.
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“When you’re 17, you’re a teenager, and I had not really done much to my name yet,” Smith said. “I had no pressure on me. I was always the youngest. Nobody really expected much out of me, and so it was so easy to walk into races feeling so fearless and not really caring what the outcome was.
“I really just shocked myself at that meet in 2019 because I didn’t believe I was capable of it.”
Here at U.S. Olympic trials, Smith again broke the world record in the event, swimming the 100 back in a scorching 57.13 seconds Tuesday night, punching her ticket to the Paris Games and beating Australian Kaylee McKeown’s previous world record time of 57.33 in the process.
As she looked up at the video board and saw her time, Smith balled her fingers into a fist, punched the water and screamed, “F— yeah!”
🗣️WOOORRRLLLDDD RECORRRDDD
Regan Smith. 57.13. Believe it. pic.twitter.com/Czt7GmCZgq
— USA Swimming (@USASwimming) June 19, 2024
“Long time coming,” Smith said afterward. “It’s about time.”
Now 22, Smith feels like she’s lived so many swimming lives. She’s been the teenage phenom. She’s been the young woman who felt like she lost her confidence completely and didn’t feel like herself. And, lately, she’s been the elite athlete rejuvenated by a new coach and a change of scenery, ready to take on history again.
“I’m in a much different place in my life,” Smith said. “I’m a lot older, obviously. The pressure is a lot different. The expectations are a lot different for myself and for other people around me.
“I’ve learned a lot over these five years, and I’ve had a lot of lows, in backstroke, in particular. But I think it’s taught me a lot, and it’s helped me definitely strengthen things on the mental side. Because I think I’ve always had it physically. I just for a long time didn’t have it mentally.”
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Smith has, indeed, always had incredible talent. She played multiple sports growing up but began making major strides once she decided to go all-in on swimming at age 13. Four years later, at the 2019 world championship meet — just her third major international meet — she set world records in both the 100-meter backstroke (as the lead-off in the medley relay) and the 200-meter backstroke (in her gold-medal-winning swim).
But after that breakthrough, she struggled. The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t help her training and didn’t help her mentally. She wasn’t looking forward to U.S. trials in 2021, saying now that her confidence at the time was at the lowest it had ever been. She made the Tokyo team but didn’t qualify in the 200-meter backstroke, which was a shocker.
“I just didn’t want to be there,” Smith said. “I wasn’t excited. I had no faith in myself. I wanted other people to do it because I thought that they were going to be better off doing it than I was — and that’s so sad to think about now. …
“I think what I really struggle with is separating emotion from logic, and I think the best of the best, they are able to stay logical in the hardest times, and that’s what I always struggled with. Because when logic goes out the door and emotion comes in, that’s when you choke, and I did that over and over because I just let my emotions take over.”
After Tokyo, Smith went to Stanford, where it took a while for her to realize the fit wasn’t right. She left the Cardinal after one year, turned pro and joined coach Bob Bowman’s elite group in Tempe, Ariz. Smith credits Bowman, who famously coached Michael Phelps his entire career, and her teammates first at Arizona State (and now Texas) for helping her regain her confidence. She’s also been working with a sports psychologist.
She knows how well she swims at practice, and she now knows, logically, if she swims at events like she does every day, she will perform at an elite level. She now knows, without a doubt, that she can do this.
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“There were many years that went by after 2019 where I thought that I would never do that ever again,” Smith said.
Bowman agreed that her mental approach has always been “by far the biggest challenge” for Smith. He sees how hard she trains — he gives her a very heavy volume of work on a regular basis — and how strong she is. Her technique was already sound. It was about getting her head right and watching her times drop.
“She trains on another level consistently day in and day out,” Bowman said. “It can be very frustrating to then go to a meet and they just don’t add up. Once she started … focusing on the important things, like, the process — not what the outcome could be, she got a lot better.”
She is the top seed heading into Thursday night’s women’s 200-meter butterfly final, and she’s also a favorite in the women’s 200-meter backstroke event here this week.
But it’s that world record in the 100 back that will put a big bullseye on her back at the Games. She’s ready for that — and the possibility of lowering that record even more.
“I’d love to,” Smith said. “I think 56 is a possibility, for sure. Whether it’s me or one of my competitors, who knows? But I’m not going to sell myself short. Absolutely not. That was an amazing race (in Indianapolis), but it wasn’t a perfect race.
“I know there are things that I can clean up and do better, and I’m going to work towards that.”
(Photo of Regan Smith during Tuesday’s medal ceremony for the 100-meter backstroke: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)