US swim star Regan Smith says she “didn’t have the mental fortitude” to cope with Kaylee McKeown rivalry

United States swimmer Regan Smith has lifted the lid on the psychological toll of her rivalry with Australia’s Kaylee McKeown.

After breaking the 200m backstroke world report in 2019, 23-year-old Smith mentioned she believed that it might mark the beginning of an period of dominance within the self-discipline that she would lead.

But when McKweon went on to greatest her in each the 100m and 200m backstroke on the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 in 2021 after which once more at different particular person races in high-profile occasions, together with Paris 2024 and the 2025 World Aquatics Championships, the phantasm was shattered, and for a time, so was she.

“I was not prepared mentally. I think I could have been prepared physically, and then I just completely fell off the horse for a couple of years there, just because I couldn’t handle that, just bluntly,” Smith mentioned, talking on The GMM Podcast.

“I didn’t have the mental fortitude to do it, and so I just got my butt kicked for many years.”

While the two-time Olympic champion and eight-time medallist has most of the time discovered herself chasing relatively than main the Australian, Smith nonetheless has an admiration for McKeown and a satisfaction in figuring out that their ongoing battle within the pool is presently certainly one of swimming’s biggest.

“I know I have continued to just sit there right behind her for many years, but at the end of the day, I am super glad people watch as closely as they do, and again, I think it’s super good for the sport”, Smith continued.

“You have to know that swimming is a time-based sport. What Kaylee is doing is completely obscene, and what she’s been in a position to do yr after yr after yr is completely unreal.

“Any different yr, another individual, if I hadn’t overlapped with Kaylee, I’d have had a lot dominance, and that is not taking away from Kaylee, and that is not making an attempt to pat myself on the again, however that the competitors is getting so unbelievably exhausting.

“We’re up here head and shoulders above everyone else.”