Speaker 1: Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're totally
Speaker 1: chill and not freaking out at all about talking to
Speaker 1: Katie mother fucking Ladecci. Okay, it's Thursday, August twenty first,
Speaker 1: and on today's show we'll be talking to swimming superstar
Speaker 1: and fourteen time Olympic medalist Katie Ladecci about her success
Speaker 1: at this year's World Championships in Singapore, What keeps her
Speaker 1: motivated year after year and the things that go through
Speaker 1: her mind as she's swimming laps, plus saving and scoring
Speaker 1: winning chips and taking trips and a game fit for
Speaker 1: the Queen. It's all coming up right after this welcome
Speaker 1: back slices. Here's what you need to know today. Let's
Speaker 1: start with the WNBA. The league has broken its total
Speaker 1: regular season attendance record, with a whole month remaining so
Speaker 1: far this year, two point four to three million folks
Speaker 1: have attended WNBA games.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The Golden State Valkyries deserve a lot of credit for
Speaker 1: this speedy new record, as the WNBA's new US team
Speaker 1: has sold out all sixteen of their home games. That's
Speaker 1: good for more than two hundred and eighty nine thousand
Speaker 1: total attendees. Plus the New York Liberty of up their game.
Speaker 1: No doubt, thanks to last year's title win, the defending
Speaker 1: WNBA champs have averaged twenty nine percent more fans so
Speaker 1: far this season. We'll link to a story from Front
Speaker 1: Office Sports that gets deeper into the weeds on the
Speaker 1: record attendance more WNBA. ESPN's Alexa Philippo and Ramona Shelburne
Speaker 1: reported on Tuesday that the Connecticut Suns owners, the Mohegan Tribe,
Speaker 1: planned to present the WNBA with multiple options for potential
Speaker 1: buyers after a previously agreed upon sale was thwarted by
Speaker 1: the league in what feels like an attempt to get
Speaker 1: the Tribe to take less money so the w can
Speaker 1: direct the team to an owner it prefers and the
Speaker 1: cash in later on a future expansion team.
Speaker 2: Quick refresher on the situation.
Speaker 1: It was previously reported that Boston Celtics minority owner Steve
Speaker 1: Paliuca wanted to buy the team and relocate it to
Speaker 1: Boston for a record breaking three hundred and twenty five
Speaker 1: million dollar fee, per report from front at the show,
Speaker 1: any constable of Front Office Sports that offer from Paliuca
Speaker 1: was agreed to by the Tribe and presented to WNBA
Speaker 1: Commissioner cat the Engelbert back in July, but Engelbert never
Speaker 1: brought it to the league's board of governors and the
Speaker 1: exclusivity period expired, opening the.
Speaker 2: Door back up to other bits.
Speaker 1: When news that the tribe in Palauca had agreed to
Speaker 1: terms went public in early August, the WNBA issued a
Speaker 1: statement that relocation deals are made by the League, not teams,
Speaker 1: and that the cities who went through the expansion process
Speaker 1: have priority over Boston. Back to Alexa and Ramona's reporting,
Speaker 1: so per ESPN sources, After the tribe in Paliuc agreed
Speaker 1: to that three hundred and twenty five million dollars sale,
Speaker 1: but before that agreement was made public, the League stepped
Speaker 1: in with their own offer to buy the Sun for
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty million and not charged the future
Speaker 1: buyer an additional relocation fee, so with their original deal
Speaker 1: with Paliuca thwarted. But not wanting to get low balled
Speaker 1: by the League, the Mohegan Tribe has presented the league
Speaker 1: with multiple proposals, including option one, the originally reported sale
Speaker 1: to Paliuca.
Speaker 2: Option two, a sale to Milwaukee Bucks.
Speaker 1: Owner Mark Lazree, who would move the team to Hartford, Connecticut,
Speaker 1: option three selling a minority stake in the organization, and
Speaker 1: option four letting the WNBA purchase the team for three
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five million and relocate it out according
Speaker 1: to the league's wishes. Philip Who and Shelbourne story has
Speaker 1: way more on what's going on behind the scenes, so
Speaker 1: we'll link to that in the show notes. Friend of
Speaker 1: the show Nancy Armour also wrote a column on the
Speaker 1: situation for USA Today, arguing that the league is acting
Speaker 1: like a mob boss in how it's handled the situation.
Speaker 2: Wrights Armour, in.
Speaker 1: Part, quote, the Mohegan Tribe have two offers, both of
Speaker 1: which would give the tribe a massive payout, boost franchise
Speaker 1: valuations across the WNBA, and maintain the Sun's fan base.
Speaker 1: By any metric, that seems like a fantastic deal, except
Speaker 1: NBA owners won't profit from it, and it prevents the
Speaker 1: WNBA and those NBA owners and outside investors from double
Speaker 1: dipping by requiring Peleeuka Laz or someone else from paying
Speaker 1: for an expanse and franchise down the road. Armour continues later, quote,
Speaker 1: prioritizing outside investors over its own owners is a bad
Speaker 1: way for the WNBA to do business, and it's going
Speaker 1: to make prospective owners think twice about wanting to do
Speaker 1: business with the WNBA.
Speaker 2: We'll link to Nancy's story in the show.
Speaker 1: Notes more w In the third and final regular season
Speaker 1: meeting between the Minnesota Links and the New York Liberty,
Speaker 1: the Liberty finally pulled out a w all. Five Liberty
Speaker 1: scorers scored in double digits to lead the defending champs
Speaker 1: to an eighty five seventy five win on Tuesday night,
Speaker 1: Both teams continued to be without their stars, as Brianna
Speaker 1: Stewart and f Sakalier are still sidelined with injuries. Speaking
Speaker 1: of injuries, we've got a few more to report. First,
Speaker 1: the Indiana Fever announced Tuesday that Sophie Cunningham is done
Speaker 1: for the season after suffering an MCL tear and the
Speaker 1: team's win over the Connecticut Sun on Sunday. Cunningham now
Speaker 1: the Fever's fourth guard to miss significant time due to injury,
Speaker 1: joining fellow season ending injury sufferers Ery MacDonald and Sidney Colson,
Speaker 1: as well as Caitlin Clark, who still sidelined indefinitely with
Speaker 1: a groin injury. With Cunningham out the Fever announced the
Speaker 1: team had signed Shape Petty to a seven day hardship
Speaker 1: contract and released guard Kyra Lambert. More roster news. The
Speaker 1: Dallas Wings will be without Lee Yoru for the rest
Speaker 1: of the season after she sprained her left ACL in
Speaker 1: a game against La last week. And she's not the
Speaker 1: wings only loss. The team is still without Arigayogumbowale, who
Speaker 1: has tendonitis in her right knee and hasn't played since
Speaker 1: August tenth. But it's not all bad news, folks. Chicago's
Speaker 1: Skystar Angel Reese is back, and she scored a team
Speaker 1: high nineteen points in Chicago's ninety four eighty eight loss
Speaker 1: to the Seattle Storm on Tuesday, even while on a
Speaker 1: minute's restriction. Reese had been out for almost a month
Speaker 1: dealing with a back injury to the NWSL. On Monday night,
Speaker 1: the Chicago Stars Alyssa Nair became the first keeper in
Speaker 1: NWSL history to make two hundred starts, and on the
Speaker 1: same night, she scored her first NWSL goal too. After
Speaker 1: the Seattle Rain took a three to zero lead, the
Speaker 1: Stars battled back to make it a one goal game,
Speaker 1: and then in the final moments of stoppage time, Nair
Speaker 1: scored amongst a crowd in front of the rain Net and.
Speaker 2: The game ended in a three to three draw. It
Speaker 2: was wild.
Speaker 1: We'll link to the video of Nair's goal in the
Speaker 1: show notes and you'll hear more about that match, which
Speaker 1: is a special contest the Rain called the Queen's Game.
Speaker 1: Later in the show more NWSL the Athletics, Tomara Griffin
Speaker 1: and Melanie en zdE reported that the Orlando Pride are
Speaker 1: finalizing a deal to sign Mexican international Lizabeth Ovaller from
Speaker 1: the Tigers of Liga MX. Per the Athletic, Orlando will
Speaker 1: pay a transfer fee of one point five million dollars,
Speaker 1: which would break the record for biggest transfer fee in
Speaker 1: women's soccer, a number we've seen broken three times already
Speaker 1: this year. We'll link to that reporting from the Athletic
Speaker 1: in the show notes. To softball, Team USA took home
Speaker 1: gold at the World Games, marking the team's fourth consecutive
Speaker 1: title at the tournament. The US went undefeated in China,
Speaker 1: going three to zero group play before defeating longtime rival
Speaker 1: Japan seven to six and ten innings, followed by a
Speaker 1: five to zero win against Chinese Tipeei.
Speaker 2: In the gold medal game.
Speaker 1: In tennis, let's go back to Monday, when Egas Fontec
Speaker 1: won the women's singles title at the Cincinnati Open, defeating
Speaker 1: Jasmin Paalini seven four in the final. Then she got
Speaker 1: on a plane, flew to New York and won two
Speaker 1: mixed doubles matches at the US Open with partner Casper
Speaker 1: Rude the.
Speaker 2: Very next day.
Speaker 1: Some of the top singles players who paired up for
Speaker 1: this new look mixed doubles event at the Open have
Speaker 1: been getting a little lesson in doubles from the world's best.
Speaker 1: Among those big names bounced on the first day Carlos
Speaker 1: Alcarez and Emeroticanu and Naomi Osaka and Gail Monfis. We're
Speaker 1: recording this ahead of the mixed doubles semi finals and
Speaker 1: finals on Wednesday night, so we'll link to the full
Speaker 1: results page.
Speaker 2: In the show notes.
Speaker 1: Coming up next, Katie Ldeki, how many medals do you
Speaker 1: think she'll add to her collection by the end of
Speaker 1: this ad break?
Speaker 2: Stick around to find out.
Speaker 1: Joining us now, she's the goat the most decorated female
Speaker 1: swimmer in history, with the total of fourteen Olympic medals,
Speaker 1: including nine golds.
Speaker 2: She's won a record twenty three.
Speaker 1: Titles at the World Championships and is the world record
Speaker 1: holder in the women's eight hundred in fifteen hundred meter freestyle.
Speaker 1: Since she first won Olympic Golden twenty twelve, she's become
Speaker 1: an Olympic champion at every distance from two hundred meter
Speaker 1: to fifteen hundred meter, and she's broken seventeen world records.
Speaker 1: She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. She was honored with Katie Ladeci Day in
Speaker 1: Montgomery County, Maryland, and she's a New York Times best
Speaker 1: selling author. She loves Bruce Springsteen and Lacroix, and she's
Speaker 1: friends with Cookie Monster.
Speaker 2: It's Katie Ladecci.
Speaker 3: Hi, Katie, Hey, Sarah, thanks for having me. I think
Speaker 3: the friendship with Cookie Monster is U maybe my highest accolade?
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, that's tops on the list for me. Did
Speaker 1: I get all those numbers right? Because I have to
Speaker 1: be honest. I literally updated them multiple times while researching
Speaker 1: your bio because it depended on how up to date
Speaker 1: the sites were. And I'm not sure if you've won
Speaker 1: any more titles since you sat down here for the interview.
Speaker 3: I think everything sounded right to me. Yeah, I'm still
Speaker 3: getting used to some of those numbers, I guess.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, just try not to win anything during the
Speaker 1: interview so I don't have to update it.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, yeah, all good, All good, Okay.
Speaker 1: So I want to start with something that I've always wondered,
Speaker 1: sort of randomly. During your long races, like the fifteen
Speaker 1: hundred meters, somebody is holding a lap counter above the
Speaker 1: water to help you keep track, and I want to
Speaker 1: know how often you actually need to look at that
Speaker 1: or are the laps just like baked into your brain.
Speaker 3: So I've never looked at the counter that's held out
Speaker 3: of the water. But actually a few years ago, maybe
Speaker 3: four or five years ago, World Aquatics, which is the
Speaker 3: International Federation for Swimming, they instituted underwater electronic counters. So
Speaker 3: that's really really nice. But I don't fully trust that
Speaker 3: that's always going to work, like you know, it might
Speaker 3: break or something or power might go out. So I
Speaker 3: always still count the lapse myself, and I don't think
Speaker 3: i've miscounted in quite.
Speaker 1: Some waow so wow, yeah, what are you thinking about
Speaker 1: when you're swimming for so long?
Speaker 2: Do you repeat a mantra.
Speaker 1: Do you repeat directions to yourself about arm or leg
Speaker 1: motions or specific form? Do you repeat the lap number
Speaker 1: over and over till it switches.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it can vary. Sometimes I have a song
Speaker 3: stuck in my head. I always have the lap count
Speaker 3: kind of in one side of my brain, but then
Speaker 3: the other side of my brain, it's thinking about my pacing,
Speaker 3: my technique, my turns, my race strategy, something like that.
Speaker 3: But then, you know, sometimes I think about people, people
Speaker 3: in my life, my teammates, my family just kind of
Speaker 3: fills me with some joy and just pushes me on
Speaker 3: in my races. But yeah, I mean, on occasion, I'll
Speaker 3: just have a song randomly stuck in my head. It's
Speaker 3: not even a song sometimes that I want to have
Speaker 3: stuck in my head. So that's always interesting.
Speaker 1: Are there any songs that make repeat appearances, because I
Speaker 1: have a couple of songs throughout my life that are
Speaker 1: just stuck in there somewhere.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean, I mean sometimes I do try
Speaker 3: to get songs stuck in my head, and I think
Speaker 3: at one point I recognize that, for example, Beautiful Day
Speaker 3: by You Two, like that's a good song for my
Speaker 3: stroke rhythma. Sometimes I try. Sometimes I try to get
Speaker 3: that stuck in my head. And then, as you said,
Speaker 3: I'm a big Bruce Springsteen fan, so I've certainly had
Speaker 3: my share of the Boss stuck in my head in races.
Speaker 3: So yeah, but then sometimes it's I don't know, whatever
Speaker 3: I last saw on Instagram reels or TikTok or something,
Speaker 3: and it just gets caught in there.
Speaker 1: What part of your body usually hurts first and most
Speaker 1: near the end of those long races.
Speaker 3: Usually it's more of a stitch in my side, that's
Speaker 3: usually what it is. It's rarely just my arms or
Speaker 3: just my legs.
Speaker 1: I remember hearing soccer player Kristen Press say that sometimes
Speaker 1: when she's in the middle of a really, really tough workout,
Speaker 1: she'll focus only on her pinky toe, like, what does
Speaker 1: my pinky toe feel like?
Speaker 2: Is it hot? Is it cold?
Speaker 1: Is it hurt?
Speaker 2: Does it feel good?
Speaker 1: And it just pulls her mind away from the parts
Speaker 1: of her that are hurting. And I've used that in
Speaker 1: workouts before and it actually really helps to just take
Speaker 1: my focus off the thing that is causing me pain.
Speaker 2: Do you do that during your races?
Speaker 3: I think so. Yeah. My biggest strength in my swimming
Speaker 3: in my freestyle is my poll, and so if my
Speaker 3: legs do get tired or if I am getting that
Speaker 3: stitch in my side, I kind of think back to
Speaker 3: all the pulling that I've done and I kind of
Speaker 3: just tell myself just focus on pulling harder and that
Speaker 3: should be okay. And it's actually something that my coach
Speaker 3: told me before one of my races. I can't remember.
Speaker 3: It may have just been before World Championships began. He
Speaker 3: told me, you know, we've actually worked a lot on
Speaker 3: my kick in my freestyle this year. And whether that
Speaker 3: shows or not to the general public's eye, I don't know,
Speaker 3: but he said, you know, we also did more poll
Speaker 3: this year, and that was intentional because when your stroke
Speaker 3: does get a little short, you resort to try and
Speaker 3: to pull harder. So if it's kind of one of
Speaker 3: those things where I think, if you can improve your
Speaker 3: strengths as well as your weaknesses, smart You're putting yourself
Speaker 3: in putting yourself in the best position, So.
Speaker 2: That's really smart. Yeah, let's talk about World Championships.
Speaker 1: You're coming off yet another spectacular outing two golds and
Speaker 1: a bronze and individual events plus silver in the four
Speaker 1: by two hundred meter freestyle relay.
Speaker 2: I want to know how you've.
Speaker 1: Spent the couple weeks since what do you do right
Speaker 1: when a big competition is over, when you're not in
Speaker 1: theory really pushing hard for the next thing.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's an eight day meet, and I
Speaker 3: actually don't have a race ever on the eighth day
Speaker 3: of Worlds. And so I had one day in Singapore
Speaker 3: where I got to be in the in the cheering
Speaker 3: squad for Timosa, which was fun. So I got to
Speaker 3: do that. And then in between the prelims and the finals,
Speaker 3: I got to get lunch with my parents in Singapore.
Speaker 3: And actually one of my Stanford friends is living in
Speaker 3: Singapore right now, and so we got together, so that
Speaker 3: was fun. I got a good, you know, cheeseburger in Singapore,
Speaker 3: which probably doesn't sound right, but it tasted very good.
Speaker 3: And then after Singapore, I flew home to DC just
Speaker 3: for a few days. Shorter travel day to go to
Speaker 3: d C than to go to Florida. So recovered from
Speaker 3: the jet lag which took some time, and just enjoyed
Speaker 3: being with my family and relaxing. And then now I'm
Speaker 3: back in Florida and then next week I'm actually gonna
Speaker 3: visit my grandmother. So she's ninety nine and a half
Speaker 3: or actually past. She turns one hundred in January, so
Speaker 3: I try to visit her whenever I have a short break,
Speaker 3: which I'm on right now, and in the next few weeks,
Speaker 3: I'll be easing back into training.
Speaker 1: Since you started competing, what's the longest you've gone without swimming.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I would probably consider the break that
Speaker 3: I took after Paris to be my longest break. But
Speaker 3: even then I was back in the water. I just
Speaker 3: wasn't doing full time training probably for two months. I
Speaker 3: kind of trained sporadically for two months and then But
Speaker 3: what about just swimming, like getting into the water.
Speaker 2: Yeah, an ocean, a lake, a pool.
Speaker 3: Probably six days, seven days. Wow, Because even on my breaks,
Speaker 3: I enjoy getting in the pool. I get antsy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're amphibious.
Speaker 3: Basically I love being in the water, so it's part
Speaker 3: of what helps my recovery my breaks. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: even over the last two weeks, I've swum three or
Speaker 3: four times.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about gender inequity in swimming,
Speaker 1: because we sort of look at women's swimming, at least
Speaker 1: on the surface as being pretty equitable terms of prize money,
Speaker 1: in terms of competitive opportunities. Is there anything we aren't
Speaker 1: talking about that we should be. Is there stuff that
Speaker 1: goes on in the swimming world that still needs to
Speaker 1: be addressed when it comes to gender equity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a good question, and you are right in that.
Speaker 3: I mean, I feel very lucky to be in a
Speaker 3: sport where the men and the women compete at the
Speaker 3: same venues at the same time. You know, at World Championships,
Speaker 3: they basically alternate a men's event, a women's event, a
Speaker 3: men's event women's event, So we're getting the same eyeballs
Speaker 3: on our sport, you know, whether whether you're a man
Speaker 3: or a woman. So it's it's nice in that way,
Speaker 3: I think. You know, I wrote a little bit in
Speaker 3: my book about what it's like to be a female
Speaker 3: athlete and some of the coverage that I've seen over
Speaker 3: the years, whether it's in swimming, or whether it's about
Speaker 3: my own performances compared to male swimmers, or how performances
Speaker 3: are discussed in the context of some of the great
Speaker 3: male swimmers. You know, how it's always you know, the
Speaker 3: next Michael Phelps or you know, and that's very understandable
Speaker 3: because Michael is the greatest swimmer of all time, male
Speaker 3: or female, greatest Olympic athlete of all time, and it's
Speaker 3: going to be very hard for anyone to ever surpass
Speaker 3: him in our sport. But you know, just I think
Speaker 3: we always want the female athletes to be celebrated in
Speaker 3: their own right, and I think you're seeing that more
Speaker 3: and more, and right now I'm very excited about our
Speaker 3: women's swim team in the US just breaking world records
Speaker 3: left and right, winning tons and tons of medals. I
Speaker 3: think the first six or seven days of the World Championships,
Speaker 3: the women on Tmusa had won a medal in every
Speaker 3: single event. I think it we maybe didn't get all
Speaker 3: the way through the meet like that, but we had
Speaker 3: some relay world records, some relay American records, just some
Speaker 3: really great performances. So I mean, I'd really like to
Speaker 3: see over the next three years my teammates get that
Speaker 3: great attention that they deserve, and I think it's a
Speaker 3: really exciting time for us as a team and building
Speaker 3: into Los Angeles in twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about some of the swimming during the
Speaker 1: first few years of your career. You had an unbeaten
Speaker 1: streak at major world competitions from twenty twelve through twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: You won every single individual final that you competed in,
Speaker 1: beginning at the London Olympics, all the way through Rio.
Speaker 1: Thirteen straight finals, thirteen straight wins. Twenty seventeen World Championships.
Speaker 1: You competed in everything from the two hundred meter to
Speaker 1: the fifteen hundred meter, which is crazy.
Speaker 2: You placed second in a final.
Speaker 1: You were a runner up to Italy's Federica Pellegrini in
Speaker 1: the two hunderd meter, so a silver medal, which is
Speaker 1: still amazing, But it was also your first quote unquote loss.
Speaker 1: So that was the headline of the moment for you,
Speaker 1: and it reminds me of at Serena William's peak, it
Speaker 1: was like not even news when she won another Grand Slam.
Speaker 2: It was only news when she didn't.
Speaker 1: So when you reflect on that experience, that first moment
Speaker 1: of like, oh I don't always win, how did it
Speaker 1: affect you and how has that stayed with you in
Speaker 1: terms of your preparation for more and later events.
Speaker 3: I think at the time it may have stung a
Speaker 3: little bit, but also Federica Pellegrini is the best to
Speaker 3: inter freestyler of all time. So I think I had
Speaker 3: to take a step back and remind myself of that.
Speaker 3: And really, I think, for me, and I've talked about
Speaker 3: this recently. I talked about this in my Stanford commencement speech,
Speaker 3: my goals have always been very time oriented. I'm very
Speaker 3: rarely setting a goal to win the gold medal or
Speaker 3: to beat these competitors. It's okay, I want to go
Speaker 3: this time at this meet, and these are the splits
Speaker 3: that I need to hit in the race to achieve
Speaker 3: this goal. And that's what I'm working toward. So I
Speaker 3: could win a gold medal and not feel like I
Speaker 3: achieved my goal. I could win a silver medal but
Speaker 3: feel like I did achieve my goal. So really, I
Speaker 3: do try to keep my focus on the times, and
Speaker 3: I think that has allowed me to have a healthy
Speaker 3: relationship with the sport and has allowed me to stay
Speaker 3: so motivated and to really enjoy the process. I really
Speaker 3: love the training, Like I think, I love it more
Speaker 3: and more every year. I love the people that I
Speaker 3: get to be with, I love my coaches. I just
Speaker 3: love showing up and trying to get better. And you know,
Speaker 3: I've gone long stretches where I haven't gone the best
Speaker 3: time I'm in some of my events because I set
Speaker 3: these really high standard world records, But I still have
Speaker 3: felt a sense of improvement during that time because I
Speaker 3: improve in practice, I improve my technique, I improve the
Speaker 3: times that I'm going in practice, the things that I'm
Speaker 3: able to do, and I just find that so rewarding.
Speaker 3: So yeah, and there's no perfect swim, there's no perfect record,
Speaker 3: there's no perfect race. There's always something for me to
Speaker 3: get better on. As we talked about it earlier, I mean,
Speaker 3: people still watch my races and say that I don't kick,
Speaker 3: so that's still something I can work on. I'm constantly
Speaker 3: trying to get better at kicking, so recognizing that there's
Speaker 3: always something to work on, and that's again why I
Speaker 3: find so much joy and excitement around around training.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting you say that, because we literally are
Speaker 1: often watching you pete against yourself. You're so far ahead,
Speaker 1: you're winning by a lot, especially in the long distance
Speaker 1: races that we're just watching to see if you can
Speaker 1: best something that you've already done, as opposed to besting
Speaker 1: the field. So it's interesting that in your mind that's
Speaker 1: sort of the process as well, is like, how can
Speaker 1: I get to the place that I set for myself
Speaker 1: as opposed to beating the people competing alongside me? And
Speaker 1: I imagine that that allows you then to put yourself
Speaker 1: out there in races like the two hundred meter where
Speaker 1: the margins are closer, where there are athletes that might
Speaker 1: beat you, that you're willing to put yourself in races
Speaker 1: that you won't necessarily win, because it's not always about
Speaker 1: the win, it's about you hitting the mark that you want.
Speaker 1: Did you sort of have to give yourself permission to
Speaker 1: do that early on though, in order to be able
Speaker 1: to enter those races and not stress about not winning
Speaker 1: every time?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so. I think in many ways, I
Speaker 3: just saw it as a challenge, a challenge to myself,
Speaker 3: and I wanted to stretch my stretch myself and see
Speaker 3: what I could do in the shorter races, see what
Speaker 3: I could do in the longer races. At the end
Speaker 3: of the day, I think I always knew that the
Speaker 3: shorter races would be the most challenging for me at
Speaker 3: the international level, but I really loved that challenge and
Speaker 3: I knew that if individually I wasn't winning that. Even
Speaker 3: just by pushing myself to compete in those events, I
Speaker 3: was helping my team because I was preparing myself for
Speaker 3: the relays that I was going to be called upon
Speaker 3: to be on. And I think even just by racing
Speaker 3: the two inter free nationally or internationally, I'm pushing my
Speaker 3: US competitors in those events, and that's bringing all of
Speaker 3: us up. It's bringing our relay performances up. So that's
Speaker 3: why I continue to swim the two hundred within the US,
Speaker 3: and I swim the two hundred on the four by
Speaker 3: two inter free style relay still internationally. And we just
Speaker 3: broke the American record in that in Singapore, and I
Speaker 3: was really happy that I was able to put down
Speaker 3: one of my best splits ever. I think it was
Speaker 3: my second fastest split ever in that and so that
Speaker 3: was probably the performance I was most excited about.
Speaker 2: I love that. Yeah, that's really cool.
Speaker 1: And like I do think, when you have so much success,
Speaker 1: you have to find new ways to gauge progress. And
Speaker 1: you mentioned that there have been times in your career
Speaker 1: when you've gone a long time without swimming a best time.
Speaker 1: Look at the four under meter freestyle for instance, you
Speaker 1: first broke the record in twenty fourteen twice, then again
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen as a nineteen year old at the
Speaker 1: Rio Olympics. Three point fifty six forty six was the
Speaker 1: time there that stood for almost six years, that world record.
Speaker 1: That's a really long time, particularly in this sport, for
Speaker 1: a record to stand. It felt sort of untouchable for
Speaker 1: everyone for a while. A couple of years later looking
Speaker 1: back and thinking like, why am I not doing better
Speaker 1: than nineteen year old me? You're still putting up exceptional times,
Speaker 1: but you're not breaking that record. Was it tough to
Speaker 1: work so hard to still have success but not be
Speaker 1: able to lower that record in those stretches that you didn't.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was tough at times, But again I
Speaker 3: come back to the process and how much I've loved
Speaker 3: the process, and that's why I've continued on in the sport.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think some people might go three or
Speaker 3: four years without going the best time and decide to
Speaker 3: retire or move on, But I truly have loved it,
Speaker 3: and I've just embraced the racing and the training, and
Speaker 3: I think that's just what made this year so much
Speaker 3: fun for me, because I broke my own world record
Speaker 3: and the eight hundred three in May, and that was
Speaker 3: a record that I hadn't touched since twenty sixteen, and
Speaker 3: so yeah, that was just it was just a moment
Speaker 3: where it just felt like all that work showed showed
Speaker 3: on the scoreboard. But I had gotten to a place
Speaker 3: where I was fine if it didn't show on the scoreboard.
Speaker 3: I was fine if I never went eight or four again.
Speaker 3: I always I believed in myself and believed that I
Speaker 3: had the chance to do that, and then I was
Speaker 3: putting in the work to be able to do that.
Speaker 3: But I was going to be fine with it if
Speaker 3: I went through my career and didn't touch that time again.
Speaker 3: So I think that's just what made it feel so
Speaker 3: much better.
Speaker 2: It did feel special.
Speaker 1: But also like when you broke that record in May,
Speaker 1: you lowered your own world record in the eight hundred meter,
Speaker 1: it had been seven years since you broke a world
Speaker 1: record in a long course pool, and you swam your
Speaker 1: second fastest times in the four hundred meter and the
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred meter at.
Speaker 2: That race, like you were just on it.
Speaker 1: And you said afterward that the twenty twenty three World
Speaker 1: Championships was the first meet in a while that you
Speaker 1: went into some of your races thinking it was a
Speaker 1: possibility to break your world records. I'm wondering what was
Speaker 1: going on in your training or your body, or what
Speaker 1: was happening around twenty twenty three that might have been
Speaker 1: like a pivot point after which you really felt like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm onto something here. I could be getting back to
Speaker 1: that peak form.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think I just built through the years. I
Speaker 3: mean Tokyo. It was kind of hard to gauge how
Speaker 3: Tokyo went because of COVID and just how strange that
Speaker 3: those two years really were. So I think just getting
Speaker 3: back to normal training after Tokyo. And I've been training
Speaker 3: in Florida at the University of Florida in Gainesville since
Speaker 3: twenty one Fall of twenty twenty one after Tokyo, and
Speaker 3: so I just had been building every year since then
Speaker 3: and felt like I was improving each year each meet
Speaker 3: and had kind of lowered my times each of those
Speaker 3: years to the point where in twenty twenty three I
Speaker 3: felt like I had that chance to go some best
Speaker 3: times and my coach, Anthony Nesty had really, you know,
Speaker 3: said something to me that made me start believing in that,
Speaker 3: and we felt like I had done that kind of
Speaker 3: preparation and was putting myself in that position. So it's
Speaker 3: just been a great, great journey, great few years, you know,
Speaker 3: building through through Paris and then now through this summer
Speaker 3: of swimming. And it makes the next few years even
Speaker 3: more exciting now because I've kind of raised my own standard,
Speaker 3: and my standard is always high to begin with, so
Speaker 3: it just kind of solidifies the belief in myself that
Speaker 3: I've had, and you know, gives me a new sense
Speaker 3: of confidence going into the next few years.
Speaker 1: Well, and you have some folks pushing you too, which
Speaker 1: is kind of wild, these two youngsters. You've got the
Speaker 1: Australian Ariana Titmus who's been around a while, pushing you.
Speaker 1: But this Canadian Summer Macintosh sort of trading off lowering
Speaker 1: the mark for the four hundred meter world record. Currently
Speaker 1: Summer Macintosh, nineteen years old, has the current mark three
Speaker 1: point fifty four eighteen. She said at Canadian Nationals in
Speaker 1: June of this year. First, is there something about being
Speaker 1: nineteen and setting world records?
Speaker 2: What is it about that age?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know. I guess it's it's a
Speaker 3: good year for female distance, But yeah, I mean those
Speaker 3: two have had a great run these last two years,
Speaker 3: and then I mean this year and the eight hundred free.
Speaker 3: There's also Lonnie Pallister from Australia who she got silver
Speaker 3: and had a really great time. So there's no shortage
Speaker 3: of competition right now. And I think the part that
Speaker 3: I had so much fun with in Singapore was it
Speaker 3: wasn't that I was going slower than my best times.
Speaker 3: I mean I was right around my best time. I
Speaker 3: was eight o five and the eight hundred free, that
Speaker 3: world record is eight oh four, and Lonnie was eight
Speaker 3: oh five, Summer was eight oh seven, she was eight
Speaker 3: o five earlier this year, So it's not like I'm
Speaker 3: going slower, like I'm going fastest I've been in years,
Speaker 3: and they're just falling right along, so I shouldn't even
Speaker 3: say they're following right along. They're also setting the standard
Speaker 3: for me, so we're all just keeping each other on
Speaker 3: our toes. As you said, the four new free has
Speaker 3: a lot of great competitors right now. The eight hundred
Speaker 3: fifteen hundred free. Also Simona Quaderella Italy swam fifteen thirty one,
Speaker 3: came the second fastest performer of all time, So yeah,
Speaker 3: it's going to be a great few years and women's
Speaker 3: distance swimming, and.
Speaker 2: You seem like you actually like it.
Speaker 3: I love it. It's so fun.
Speaker 1: It's not annoying hearing about all these youngsters coming for
Speaker 1: your titles, because.
Speaker 3: I mean, at this point in my career too, I
Speaker 3: feel like I've achieved way more than I ever imagined
Speaker 3: I would when I started swimming when I was six
Speaker 3: years old, when I started internationally swimming when I was
Speaker 3: fifteen years old. So it's really cool to feel like
Speaker 3: we're all together able to push the sport forward and
Speaker 3: set these new standards for others to follow. And you know,
Speaker 3: I know that I'm in the second half of my
Speaker 3: career and you know someday I'm going to be retired,
Speaker 3: and you want to leave the sport in a better
Speaker 3: place than what you found it in, So.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: It also feels like you're enjoying it that way. It's
Speaker 1: not stressful to you. It's it's and it's communal, which
Speaker 1: can be tough in a an individual sport, but you're
Speaker 1: seeing it as something you're doing together instead of against
Speaker 1: each other in terms of setting new records and moving
Speaker 1: it forward, which is really cool. You know, sometimes we
Speaker 1: talk about young athletes like Summer Macintosh or you back
Speaker 1: in the day, like oh, this is what they're doing now,
Speaker 1: imagine what they'll be like in a few years, instead
Speaker 1: of appreciating what's happening in the moment. And sometimes particularly
Speaker 1: for women athletes, where peaks can be different depending on
Speaker 1: their bodies, they don't ever get faster or better. Is
Speaker 1: there something you wish we could change about how we
Speaker 1: talk about the success of young athletes, or how we
Speaker 1: talk about how athletes female athletes develop and changes they
Speaker 1: get older.
Speaker 3: I think that's a really good point. I think it's
Speaker 3: something that you know, I think I think the athletes
Speaker 3: even start believing that themselves, and they probably don't appreciate
Speaker 3: the moments that they're having right now. So yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: just thinking back to Rio and how I was thinking,
Speaker 3: and and even just how athletes I think in general think.
Speaker 3: I think we're always thinking about the next thing, and
Speaker 3: we're thinking about the next goal, and even after Singapore,
Speaker 3: during this break that I'm having, I have all these
Speaker 3: different thoughts of what I could have done better in
Speaker 3: my races and what I need to work on, and
Speaker 3: I think it's important to take a step back and
Speaker 3: enjoy the moment still and not be too hard on
Speaker 3: yourself while you're evaluating and trying to get better. So
Speaker 3: I think you're right that just athletes have different peaks.
Speaker 3: And I think I was asked about this by some
Speaker 3: international reporter, I think at Worlds they asked me something
Speaker 3: about peaks, and I kind of just said, I don't
Speaker 3: really believe in peaks or these expectations or these beliefs
Speaker 3: that you're to achieve a peak at a certain age.
Speaker 3: I think it's something that I was very aware of
Speaker 3: as a young distance swimmer, that there was this myth
Speaker 3: that if you're a female distance swimmer, you're going to
Speaker 3: peek at age fifteen or nineteen or twenty somewhere around there.
Speaker 3: And I kind of always had in the back of
Speaker 3: my mind two thoughts, one thought of that could be me,
Speaker 3: and the other thought of, I want to bust that myth,
Speaker 3: and I want to keep going and I want to
Speaker 3: prove to people that that's not the case. That you
Speaker 3: can be successful in distance swimming for many, many years,
Speaker 3: or as long as you want. And I think it's
Speaker 3: been interesting over the years as I've gone through this
Speaker 3: sport to see kind of those reactions to you know,
Speaker 3: my swimming journey into my late twenties and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're myth busting you're doing.
Speaker 3: You have some people that that that call me, you
Speaker 3: know that that call that age old and swimming, And
Speaker 3: sometimes I kind of joke about it being old and swimming,
Speaker 3: and people kind of outside the sport of swimming say,
Speaker 3: come on, Katie, you're twenty eight. That's still very young.
Speaker 3: So there's there are all these talks about age. And
Speaker 3: I think you've seen in other sports, how how especially
Speaker 3: in endurance sports marathon running, triathlons, marathon swimming, generally people
Speaker 3: get better as they get older. So it makes me
Speaker 3: appreciate the opportunities that I have today as an athlete,
Speaker 3: as a female athlete, that I was able to swim
Speaker 3: through college and swim as a professional athlete. I realized
Speaker 3: that there are swim in the sixties, seventies, eighties, even
Speaker 3: more recently that didn't have the opportunities to swim into
Speaker 3: their mid to late twenties because it didn't financially make sense,
Speaker 3: or they didn't they literally didn't have a team to
Speaker 3: swim for college swimming Title nine it came around later
Speaker 3: for women. So it's something that it helps me reflect
Speaker 3: on the history of our sport, the history of women's sports,
Speaker 3: and makes me very appreciative of the opportunities that I
Speaker 3: have today. And I hope that whenever I retire, I'm
Speaker 3: going to get to sit back and watch distance swimmers
Speaker 3: into their late twenties, early thirties, whatever they want to do, compete.
Speaker 1: Well, you're setting an example for sure for them to watch,
Speaker 1: particularly in the sense of like, your career is now
Speaker 1: a mountain range.
Speaker 2: It is peak peak, peak peak, It's.
Speaker 1: Not one peak when you were younger, and so you
Speaker 1: have busted that myth that you wanted to I wonder
Speaker 1: if there's any really silly or quirky thing that you've
Speaker 1: done in training just to change things up, some weird
Speaker 1: prop that you used, some different crazy interval, Like is
Speaker 1: there ever a day that you're like, I don't want
Speaker 1: to just do laps today, or I don't want to
Speaker 1: work on my cake or my pull, I want to
Speaker 1: fill in the blank.
Speaker 2: And you guys got weird with it.
Speaker 1: I was a track athlete, so I know what it's
Speaker 1: like to be like I'm just running in circles. I
Speaker 1: gotta do something else, Like there's never a day where
Speaker 1: you felt that way.
Speaker 3: I mean, there was one day in preparation for Worlds,
Speaker 3: probably in June, where our coach randomly not not randomly,
Speaker 3: I shouldn't say randomly, because there's always a reason for everything.
Speaker 3: But we were taken aback because we were putting the
Speaker 3: sprint group for the day. Bobby Fink and I were
Speaker 3: an Emma Wyatt, one of my other teammates who swims
Speaker 3: the forned I am, and so we were doing twenty
Speaker 3: fives off the block and we were getting like four
Speaker 3: minutes of rest between twenty fives, and we were sitting
Speaker 3: around like, can we hurry this up? Why are we
Speaker 3: getting all this rest? This is what you guys do
Speaker 3: every day? How do you do this? Like it's And
Speaker 3: they actually wanted more rest, so you know, it's just
Speaker 3: it's kind of fun to trade places for a practice
Speaker 3: here and there with sprinters or iams or mix it
Speaker 3: up whenever we can.
Speaker 2: Sounds like maybe more fun for you than for them.
Speaker 1: That's like when I used to have the long run
Speaker 1: days and I was like, no, thank you, I didn't
Speaker 1: sign up for this. You seem sort of superhuman to
Speaker 1: us mortals, untiring, indestructible, obsessed with getting better and working
Speaker 1: out every day where and how do you actually feel
Speaker 1: the wear and tear of years of training and competing.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm not a superhuman and I think that's what
Speaker 3: I always thought when I started swimming when I was six,
Speaker 3: and the Olympics for on TV. I always thought, Oh,
Speaker 3: you have to be some sort of superhero that get
Speaker 3: to that level. But I, you know, went through the
Speaker 3: sport and realize that's not the case. These people are normal,
Speaker 3: just like any anyone else. So yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 3: certainly have to take my recovery very seriously. And I
Speaker 3: sleep more now than I did when I was fifteen
Speaker 3: years old. I cook for myself now, so I enjoy
Speaker 3: that that part of it, eating healthy and trying to
Speaker 3: make all the right decisions out of the pool. So yeah,
Speaker 3: those things, I mean, those things I see as training.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's part of the training. If you don't
Speaker 3: do those things properly, you're going to impact how you
Speaker 3: feel at practice, and that's not good.
Speaker 1: What's the most relatable thing about you? Are you binge
Speaker 1: watching trashy TV? Do you eat garbage on the couch
Speaker 1: every once in a while, do you forget to floss
Speaker 1: what's going to make us feel like you're like us
Speaker 1: because I'm not buying them, not a superhero thing.
Speaker 3: I mean, not currently watching anything. I let's see. I
Speaker 3: mean I had ice cream last night.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, something? What are you bad at?
Speaker 3: What am I bad at? I mean lots of things,
Speaker 3: I'm sure. I mean, I don't think I broke eight
Speaker 3: minutes in the mile in eighth grade when we had
Speaker 3: to run the mile in gym class.
Speaker 2: So it's that kick again. You got no feet.
Speaker 3: I might prefer the push up test and the sit
Speaker 3: up test than the mile. So yeah, I know people
Speaker 3: who know that I'm a distance summer say that when
Speaker 3: I retire, oh, you should do like a marathon or
Speaker 3: an iron man or something. And you have not seen
Speaker 3: me run. I will stick to the pool.
Speaker 2: All right, we got something? Okay, last question for you.
Speaker 1: We play our version of bench start cut, but you
Speaker 1: don't have to cut anything. We just do good, gooder,
Speaker 1: and goodest. So rank these an order from good, gooder
Speaker 1: and goodesta A Bruce Springsteen show, a training day in Florida,
Speaker 1: a whole week off.
Speaker 3: Oh, I would go a whole week off good A
Speaker 3: Bruce Springsteen Show, Gooder, and what was it a training
Speaker 3: day or.
Speaker 1: Training day in Florida, A regular trainer day in Florida.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, that might be on par with a
Speaker 3: Bruce Springsteen show because it's just a train one training day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll allow it. You're crazy, I mean, that's why
Speaker 2: or who you are.
Speaker 3: Maybe if it was a week.
Speaker 1: Would you have said a whole week off is bad
Speaker 1: if that was allowed as opposed to good?
Speaker 3: Probably?
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, you know what, honestly, I love to hear
Speaker 1: that people like you, who have accomplished so much are
Speaker 1: like this. It makes me feel good that you're doing
Speaker 1: the thing you should be doing.
Speaker 3: No, it's good to take a week off here and there.
Speaker 3: So well, not here and there, but at the end
Speaker 3: of the season, here we go. It's not not a
Speaker 3: bad thing, not a bad thing.
Speaker 1: Well, this podcast is probably the longest you've been out
Speaker 1: of the pool in a while, so we have to
Speaker 1: let you go.
Speaker 2: Thank you so so much for the time. It was
Speaker 2: so great to talk to you.
Speaker 1: We're just such big fans at the show, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure everyone listening is too, so thanks so much for
Speaker 1: giving us some of your.
Speaker 3: Insight, and of course thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Thanks again to Katie for taking the time. We have
Speaker 1: to take another break. When we return. Bow Down Slices
Speaker 1: Royalty is in the room.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, Slices.
Speaker 1: We love that you're listening, but we want you to
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Speaker 1: good game play of the day. Pat yourself on the back,
Speaker 1: give yourself a high five.
Speaker 2: Maybe you all.
Speaker 1: Came through for my birthday doing good deeds to put
Speaker 1: some light out in the world. Mo O'Donnell donated to
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Speaker 1: donated to a cause I was raising money for called
Speaker 1: All Chicago that serves unhoused folks in my city, and
Speaker 1: Marsha p really stepped it up.
Speaker 2: She wrote, quote, I.
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Speaker 1: anti woman, homophobic, anti trans anti education, anti clean water,
Speaker 1: anti feed, the hungry, anti voter rights, and pro Trump asshole. Honestly,
Speaker 1: she is the worst of the worst. Happy good game,
Speaker 1: Birthday to you, Sarah, and my money to Rob sand
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Speaker 1: Rate and review, y'all. It's easy watch. Honoring the women
Speaker 1: who paved the way, rating forty out of forty years.
Speaker 2: Of US women's national team greatness review.
Speaker 1: Monday Night's match between the Seattle Rain and Chicago Color
Speaker 1: Neutral Stars marked the beginning of a new tradition for
Speaker 1: the Rain called the Queen's Match, honoring trailblazing women in
Speaker 1: the sport of soccer. This year's match celebrated the very
Speaker 1: first US women's national team, the nineteen eighty five squad,
Speaker 1: who traveled to Italy to play the first US women's
Speaker 1: national team match ever on August eighteenth, nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 1: Monday Night marked exactly forty years to the day from
Speaker 1: when they first took the pitch at a time when
Speaker 1: there was no Women's World Cup and no women's soccer
Speaker 1: in the Olympics. Truly, the eighty five vers paved the
Speaker 1: way for the teams that followed. Shout out to front
Speaker 1: of the show Aaron Foley, who moderated a panel with
Speaker 1: the team at Seattle Women's sports bar Rough and Tumble
Speaker 1: Pub this Saturday before the game, chatting with eighty five
Speaker 1: legends like Michelle Acres and Denise Bender. And shout out
Speaker 1: to the Rain for giving some very deserving women their flowers.
Speaker 1: Now it's your turn rate and review. Thanks for listening, y'all,
Speaker 1: See you tomorrow. Good game, Katie, Good Game. Eighty five
Speaker 1: rs you anyone who put limits on a young Katie.
Speaker 1: Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports
Speaker 1: production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You
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Speaker 1: our producers are Alex Azzie and Misha Jones.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan
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Speaker 1: Our editors are Emily Rutter, Britney Martinez, Grace Lynch, and
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Speaker 2: Our associate producer is Lucy Jones.
Speaker 1: Production assistance from Avery Loftus and I'm Your Host Sarah Spain.