“Lost a bit of respect for him”- Regan Smith makes feelings known about an unheard incident with coach Bob Bowman

Regan Smith revealed an unheard incident with her coach Bob Bowman in an interview. The swimmer recently concluded her 2024 season after competing in the World Aquatics Swimming Championships.

Smith had a successful run in 2024 as she competed in the Paris Olympics, where she won a total of five medals. She stood atop the podium in two events, including the 4x100m medley and 4x100m mixed medley races. Following these wins, she also won three silver medals in the 100m backstroke, 200m backstroke, and the 200m butterfly events.

Months after her Olympic exploits, Smith engaged in a conversation with the Swimming World magazine, where she discussed multiple points of her career, including the Tokyo and Paris Olympics. Along with this, she also spoke about her coach, Bob Bowman, shedding light on an unheard incident which affected her perception of him for some time. She revealed that in March 2024, Bowman left Arizona State just two days after helping the men's team win a national title, which affected Smith's training for the Paris Olympics. This made the swimmer lose respect for the coach for a while.

“When all this happened, I think I came out of my shell, because, to be completely truthful, I lost a bit of respect for him, and that’s come back, but I was so mad at him, and just did not treat him as my superior for a little while,” Regan Smith said. “I think he kind of liked to see that other side of me. And so now we’ve reached a very good middle ground, where we’re at now, where I can speak to him candidly. I’m not afraid to come up and talk to him.”

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Regan Smith opened up about being tough on herself for the preparation of the Paris Olympics

In Picture: Smith at 2024 Paris Olympics- Source: Getty

In the aforementioned interview, Regan Smith also revealed how her training for the Paris Olympics went. She said that she was very tough on herself during that period; if she missed any day of practice, she really 'beat' herself up.

“I always took training so seriously, and if I missed one day of practice or if I had a bad practice, I was really hard on myself, and I really beat myself up. I would be like, ‘Well, I need all of my ducks to be in order, everything to be in order.’ I give everything 100% all the time, and if I don’t, I feel like I’m slacking and I’m lazy. I realized after a certain point that I was just living life on hard mode," said Regan Smith.

Regan Smith currently holds a total of eight Olympic medals, as she won three medals during the 2020 Tokyo Games, of which two were silver medals and one was a bronze medal. Adding to it, as mentioned above, she won five medals at the 2024 Paris Games.