Two-time Olympian Liliana Ibáñez appeared on Inside With Brett Hawke to talk about her life and her career as an Olympic swimmer for Mexico. Ibáñez recently recovered from shoulder surgery and has been training with Hawke, albeit remotely while she is in Mexico City. She explained her positive outlook towards life and swimming as well as her early days in the sport (7:00).
Ibáñez explained how she found Texas A&M (8:15), where she swam four years from 2010 – 2015, including a redshirt year in 2011-12. She went over the difficulties of adjusting to life in the United States and being away from her family in Mexico, as well as the cultural differences between life in College Station and Mexico City. She went over how she has received more help from the Mexican Swimming Federation as a pro athlete as she celebrated her 30th birthday at the end of January.
Liliana Ibáñez reflected on her first Olympic experience (11:30), where she watched Ian Thorpe in Sydney in 2000 at age 9, although she admitted she never thought the Olympics would be reachable for her. It was in 2006 when she swam at her first South American Games and realized what she needed to do to qualify for the Olympics.
Ibáñez made her first Olympics in 2012, but had sustained an injury a year prior (21:00) and how she was able to recover so quickly in order to swim in London, where she finished 25th in both the 100 and 200 freestyle. She had broken the national record in the 200 free in Santa Clara where she qualified for the Games, as that time still stands as the national record for Mexico.
Liliana Ibáñez explained why she gives it her all every single day in training as she chases what would be her third Olympic Games in Tokyo (27:00) as well as how much pride she takes in being a role model for young swimmers in Mexico (36:00).