From The Outside Looking In: Life After The Olympic Trials

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Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Guest Commentary by Olympic gold medalist Tyler Clary

The last several weeks have been quite a different experience. For the last eight years, during the summer I’ve been away from home at a swim meet, usually overseas. This definitely isn’t what I was planning on, in fact I had been planning on making The Team.

Looking back at Olympic Trials isn’t as painful as I would’ve thought, considering how the meet went. I’m proud of my performances in Omaha. I don’t think there’s a thing I would have changed about how I approached the meet and how I raced. I can say without a doubt that I gave everything. It just wasn’t quite enough this time around.

Sure, I would have loved to have made the Olympic team one more time if I had only been one spot higher (twice) – and that’s the only negative result from this past summer in my eyes. I got beat, simply put, by swimmers that were legitimately better than me at this Trials. Ryan Murphy has been around for a while and I’m so proud to watch his dominant charge into the international scene. He’s already won Gold in the 100m Back and he’s showing great promise in the 200.

Jacob Pebley is one of those guys that’s always been right there, and I admire the perseverance, dedication and faith that he has. He’s had an amazing summer, and proven that he’s the right guy to go into battle with Ryan tonight. I’m never OK with getting beat, but it’s one hell of a silver lining to have it be at the hands of two athletes that I respect and trust in their ability. The 200 Back is near and dear to my heart for obvious reasons, I’m excited and looking forward to watching the best two 200 Backstrokers in our country go out into that dog fight tonight!

Taking a breather has been nice. I’ve been doing a lot of rock climbing, spending more time training my dogs, doing lots of research for the next version of my greenhouse, body surfing a little bit and just generally relaxing! Caroline and I have been planning a large road trip this fall where we will drive and camp in a counter-clockwise rotation of the country, doing swim clinics along the way. We will be running these swim clinics through Fitter and Faster Swim Tour and we’ll be publishing the dates for the whole thing very soon. We’re really looking forward to it and we plan on doing a lot to bring as many of you along as possible through videos and social media posts.

I plan on staying in the water, I haven’t filled out my retirement paperwork yet because the decision, at least for now, hasn’t been made. The water is one of the best environments in which to train and stay in shape – I’m utilizing it! Racing is also beginning to get exciting. I already have four separate opportunities to drive in the coming months, and one of them is a nine hour endurance race! I’ll also be posting all about this on my YouTube and on social. I’m hoping you follow along on my first foray into sports car racing!

Support and encouragement have been a theme following the Trials this year. My entire family, including Caroline’s family and all coaches I’ve had this past quad, has been extremely supportive and encouraging towards not only my performances this summer, but also towards my aspirations to be a professional racing driver. I can never thank you all enough just for being you! There’s also a different kind of support that demands recognition. Without the backing of my sponsors at Built With Chocolate Milk, BMW, Lowe’s, IVI Vision, and Speedo (who’s been there since the beginning in 2010), I would never have had the opportunity to pursue the dream of becoming an Olympic Champion. I can never thank all of these people enough, and I can’t sing their praises loud enough.

I truly believe in the power of chocolate milk and its ability to aide in recovery. I can’t say how proud I am to be an ambassador for BMW – truly the ULTIMATE driving machine! I’m ecstatic to work with Lowe’s, seeing how I built my entire greenhouse from products at their store! IVI Vision for letting me rock some if the nicest and most finely crafted shades there are – and at an efficient price. Last but certainly not least Speedo, my first. Ever since I was a little kid I knew that the name Speedo was synonymous with aquatic dominance. I mean come on, they’re so iconic that the freaking brief is named after them! It has always filled me with a deep rooted sense of pride to have their logo emblazoned on my cap and goggles while I do something that I’ve loved for so long. I look forward with anticipation to use the water to stay Speedo Fit long after I’ve hung up my competitive suit!

All things said and done, I do feel that I’ve let you all down. The aggravating thing about it is that there’s nothing I can do to change it. As Caroline says quite frequently, “you can’t win ’em all.” She isn’t wrong! My only hope is that I can make it up, in some way, to all of you by doing what I set out to do years ago.

I want to bring you all along with me on this journey without losing my connection to swimming, after all it’s what brought me here. I invite you to come with me and once again be a part of a goal that will be filled with ups and downs, fun and not-so-fun situations, and a whole lot of Shelby and Murphy. I’m motivated to make this dream a reality!

Reposted with permission from Tyler Clary’s blog 

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Jeff
Jeff
7 years ago

Please do some Masters- specific clinics.jeff

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