With one epic swim, Regan Smith regains world record and conquers self-doubt

On a rich and fascinating Tuesday night at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials, where Team USA is picking the squad that will compete next month at the Paris Games, the spotlight shone on an elite group of stars in various stages of recovery from the worst this sport could throw at them. They are all, to one degree or another, survivors.

The headliner and standard-bearer was Regan Smith. In the final of the women’s 100-meter backstroke, she reclaimed the world record she lost three years ago, clocking a time of 57.13 seconds, which was two-tenths of a second faster than the mark of Australia’s Kaylee McKeown, who took the record from Smith. The victory also clinched Smith’s spot on her second U.S. Olympic team, with runner-up Katharine Berkoff (57.91) earning a berth as well.

There hadn’t been a world record set at the U.S. trials since 2008, but in the first four days of this meet, there already have been two, with Gretchen Walsh taking down the record in the 100 butterfly with a 55.18 in a semifinal Saturday.

“Just like, [expletive] yeah. Long time coming,” Smith, 22, said of her immediate reaction to seeing the world record time on the scoreboard. “I was just psyched out of my mind. … There were many years that went by where I thought would never do that ever again. I’m really, really happy I finally started to believe in myself.”

Asked to contrast the 17-year-old phenom who broke the 100 back record at the 2019 world championships (57.57) to the one who regained it Tuesday, she said: “When you’re 17 … it was very easy. I had no pressure on me. I was always the youngest. No one expected much out of me. So it was easy to walk into races just feeling fearless. Now tonight, I’m in a much different place in my life. I’m a lot older. The pressure is different. The expectations are different. … I’ve had a lot of lows, but it’s taught me a lot.”

Also Tuesday night, a pair of battle-scarred American superstars, Caeleb Dressel and Simone Manuel, took giant steps in their comebacks from the depths, throwing down massive swims in their 100-meter freestyle semifinals.

Dressel and Manuel — both 27, both already two-time Olympians and multitime gold medalists, both working back from lengthy hiatuses from the sport — cruised into Wednesday night’s finals, with Dressel finishing in 47.53 to qualify as the third fastest among the men and Manuel finishing in 53.16 to qualify as the second seed for the women.

Dressel, a five-time gold medalist in Tokyo, came into this meet as a massive unknown, owing to an eight-month mental health break from the sport that started with his sudden withdrawal from the 2022 world championships in Budapest. Tuesday night’s swim, his fastest since the summer of 2021, was the clearest sign yet that he is close to regaining his top form, if he hasn’t already.

Manuel has been absent from the international scene since Tokyo in 2021, the same summer she revealed she had been suffering from overtraining syndrome, a condition marked by severe mental and physical fatigue. A four-time medalist at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games — including a victory in the 100 free that made her the first Black woman to win an individual swimming Olympic gold — she contemplated quitting the sport but instead rested for five months and has been slowly building back up since.

On Wednesday night, Dressel and Manuel will need top-two finishes to lock up spots in the individual 100 freestyles in Paris, top-four finishes to secure relay spots or top-six finishes to grab the bonus relay spots, subject to some complex roster math that would only be confirmed at the end of the meet.

In the only other final contested Tuesday, Bobby Finke, a two-time gold medalist in Tokyo who trains with Katie Ledecky at Gator Swim Club in Gainesville, Fla., won the men’s 800 free in 7:44.22 to become a two-time Olympian. Late-charging Luke Whitlock, 18, was second in 7:45.19 and will join Finke in Paris. He became the youngest man to make the U.S. swimming roster since Michael Phelps competed at the Sydney Games in 2000 at 15.

For Smith, the past several years have brought setbacks and disappointments that threw her career into a downward spiral. She failed to make the 2021 U.S. Olympic team in her signature event, the 200 back, then had an underwhelming showing, by her lofty standards, in Tokyo. She battled fear and anxiety when she raced. She went nearly five years without setting a personal best in her backstrokes. She changed coaches twice, leaving Stanford after only one season.

“At 2021 trials, I was at my absolute lowest point, confidence-wise,” she said. “I didn’t want to be there. I wasn’t excited. I had no faith in myself. I wanted other people [to make the team] because I thought they were going to be better off doing it than I was. That’s so sad to think about now.”

But since joining the elite training group of coach Bob Bowman in the fall of 2022 — largely because Bowman’s high-intensity practices fit Smith’s preferred approach to training — she has made steady progress, and this meet has found Smith back at the top of her game. On Sunday night, she became the fifth-fastest performer in history in the 100-meter butterfly, with a time of 55.62 — but didn’t clinch a roster spot because two rivals, Walsh and Torri Huske, were faster.

Tuesday night’s tour de force took the sting off that heartbreak, and then some, and she still has races remaining in the 200 back and 200 fly — she is the former world record holder in the former and the top seed in the latter. After that, it’s off to Paris, where the 100 back is expected to feature an epic showdown between Smith and McKeown.

“I hope so,” Smith said when asked whether she thought another world record was possible in Paris. “I think 56 [seconds] is a possibility for sure, whether it’s me or one of my competitors. … I’m not going to sell myself short. That was an amazing race, but it wasn’t a perfect race.”