{"id":590996,"date":"2024-07-20T09:08:40","date_gmt":"2024-07-20T16:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=590996"},"modified":"2024-07-20T11:24:54","modified_gmt":"2024-07-20T18:24:54","slug":"canadas-resilient-regan-rathwell-earns-magical-olympic-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/canadas-resilient-regan-rathwell-earns-magical-olympic-chance\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s Resilient Regan Rathwell Earns \u2018Magical\u2019 Olympic Chance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canada\u2019s Resilient Regan Rathwell Earns \u2018Magical\u2019 Olympic Chance<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s no easy way around it, so you might as well just ask it. Regan Rathwell<\/strong> has spent the last five minutes presenting an atlas to her various injuries over a hellish last two years, and the question is begging its way out.<\/p>\n

The broken foot that she swam through at Canadian Swimming Trials in 2022. The shoulder reconstruction that October, after the briefest introduction to collegiate swimming at the University of Tennessee. Surgery to shore up the other shoulder in 2023 that made it 13 months between competitions. The hospitalization for an illness and a mass removed from her neck last December. The concussion four weeks before Canadian Trials, because why the heck not?<\/p>\n

Through it all, did Rathwell ever wonder if swimming was just over for her? Even at 20, even with two years of college left, even with a promising junior career that foretold senior promise if her body would just cooperate for more than a month or two, surely there had to be moments where she wondered why she was still pushing to do this?<\/p>\n

The answer is so flat and matter of fact as to make you wonder why you hesitated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn’t sure if I was going to get back,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was a big question.\u201d<\/p>\n

The native of<\/a> Ashton, Ontario, answered emphatically at Canadian trials<\/a>, her time of 2:09.38 in the women\u2019s 200 backstroke qualifying for the Paris Olympics. That was the last of a troika of last-chance swims for Rathwell in a storybook spring, needing a last-minute cut even to get to Canadian Trials after her qualifying times had expired.<\/p>\n

The larger question still stands, though \u2013 of how a swimmer, who went essentially two years between meets where she was fully healthy, could summon the self-belief to perform on the biggest stage of her career.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was magical,\u201d Matt Kredich<\/strong>, her coach at Tennessee offered, struggling for the right words to encompass it all. \u201cIt is, this year, to me, the greatest individual story of the Olympics.\u201d<\/p>\n

A long road to \u2019well<\/h4>\n

Kredich isn\u2019t just Rathwell\u2019s coach. For a portion of time, he was her rehab partner.<\/p>\n

When Kredich had his knee replaced, he found himself on training tables alongside Rathwell, after her first shoulder reconstruction. Every day, even if she couldn\u2019t physically do much, Rathwell showed up, to be around teammates and chip away at the mountain of her rehab, one that got steeper midway through the process when the other shoulder required surgery.<\/p>\n

Kredich has seen injuries snowball on swimmers before. He\u2019s seen it extinguish their fire for the sport. Given what Rathwell dealt with, Kredich had his eyes peeled for warning signs. But he never saw them.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Regan Rathwell at Canadian Olympic Trials: Photo Courtesy: Michael P. Hall\/Swimming Canada<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI just kept thinking, I’ve seen people that have sequences of injuries before that, at some point, they just say, I\u2019m done,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m 100 percent in support of that, because in order do this sport at a level where you\u2019ve got to try to get back to healthy, it requires tremendous drive and excitement for the sport. And I never saw her lose that.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were myriad opportunities, up until literally days before Canadian trials, for Rathwell to throw in the towel. For three years, from Canadian Olympic Trials in 2021 to the voyage to Toronto this May, she only had a few meets that weren\u2019t impacted by some kind of health issue.<\/p>\n

That first Olympic Trials, where she went 2:11.72 at age 17 to finish fourth, hinted at her capabilities. But it took time to get back there. She fell short of her aspirations at Canadian Trials the next year by going 2:13.42, though she swam with a broken foot after dropping a weighted plate on it.<\/p>\n

She persevered in the summer of 2022 to go a best time of 2:09.54 at Mare Nostrum in Barcelona. While that was her only voyage under 2:10, she accompanied it with a 2:11.28 at Canadian Junior and Senior Championships in July.<\/p>\n

But it all came at a cost. Soon after swimming at Junior Pan Pacs and enrolling in Knoxville, the Greater Ottawa Kingfish Swim Club alum<\/a> felt pain in her shoulder reach an unmanageable point, requiring surgical intervention. She suffered a circumferential labral tear with a fracture in the humeral head of her right shoulder, leading to a full reconstruction with reinforcement of the rotator cut. Her recovery taxed her left side, a SLAP tear (superior labrum anterior and posterior) forming in her left shoulder with a partial labrum tear.<\/p>\n

The injuries were painful on their own. But interrupting obvious progress for a teen building into her best years was acutely devastating.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I was in the best shape of my life going into these injuries,\u201d Rathwell said. \u201cI wasn’t really at a plateau. I was kind of on an up. My training was doing really well. I was really happy. And then the frustration hits where you’re watching and you\u2019re trying not to compare yourself, but you\u2019re like, \u2018OK I could have been here, I could have been here, I could have been doing this.\u2019 I think that makes it hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

The injuries meant she didn\u2019t swim in competition from a dual meet in October 2022<\/a> to the Tennessee Invitational in November 2023. But Kredich saw her every day, drawing what strength she could from the team and trying to piece together one step after the next.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tried not to look far ahead,\u201d she said. \u201cI was taking things day by day. \u2026 When you take things day by day, it’s like, OK, maybe it won’t happen, and anything that happens moving forward is a bonus.<\/p>\n

The Olympic adversity<\/h4>\n

Things would, however, get worse before they got better. Rathwell was hospitalized in the fall for internal bleeding. A mass was removed in her neck in December. Kredich is quick to point out that while both shoulders are repaired, that isn\u2019t the same as swimming pain-free.<\/p>\n

The mental and physical toll meant she swam just one exhibitioned event in Tennessee\u2019s two January dual meets. Kredich and Rathwell\u2019s main stroke coach, Ashley Jahn<\/strong>, decided not to subject her to SEC Championships, opting for two extra weeks of recovery before a home last-chance meet.<\/p>\n

Lo and behold, Rathwell delivered a pair of NCAA cuts there<\/a>, getting to Athens in both the 100 back and 200 back.<\/p>\n

Rathwell\u2019s NCAA performance illustrates it perfectly for Kredich. She had gone 53.08 at the last chance meet, then sped up to 52.03 to finish 29th in prelims. In the 200, seeded 19th and with a chance to make it back, she ended up dropping nearly two seconds to a 1:51-point \u2026 until she was disqualified for toes over the lip of the gutter on the start.<\/p>\n

Whatever Kredich was bracing for when Rathwell returned to the Vols\u2019 bench wasn\u2019t what he got.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe just never felt sorry for herself and she never felt down,\u201d he said. \u201cShe walked by the team right afterwards and said, \u2018just another step in the comeback.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Through it all, Rathwell reframed the weight of her adversity. With so much time away from the pool, any morsel of progress, however slight, wasn\u2019t measured by how far away it was from her best but as if it was a new beginning. Being able to complete a drill for the first time in Rathwell\u2019s swimming life 2.0 was an achievement, not to be diminished by a previously life that felt so distant.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was almost like, I got to start my career all over again,\u201d she said. \u201cI had been swimming for 12 years. And you kind of take it for granted when it moves along. But I got to do my first practice back, take my first stroke, do my first race again, go my first best time. That was mentally was where I thrived most.\u201d<\/p>\n

The final blow<\/h4>\n

Rathwell\u2019s last pre-Trials hurdle would test that resilience. She felt ready for Canadian Trials in May at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre \u2026 only it had been so long since she\u2019d swum long-course meters that her qualifying cuts from the summer of 2022 had expired. So she and Jahn scrambled to San Antonio for the Pro Swim Series event, where she managed a finals time of 2:12.08 in the 200 back, well under the 2:19 required to reach Trials. The celebration lasted about a day until \u2013 how do you not see this coming yet? \u2013 after prelims of the 100 back, while getting out of the pool, she tugged on a loose backstroke wedge that came down and bonked her on the head.<\/p>\n

After being a second slower in finals that night and reporting to Kredich that her head still hurt the next day, they determined it was a concussion, 29 days shy of the open of Olympic Trials, more than a week of was spent out of the water recuperating.<\/p>\n

So piece it all together \u2013 the injuries, the surgeries, the illnesses, the reflex for a little self-protection \u2013 and you can figure out how modest of expectations Rathwell packed in her bags for Toronto.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my mind, I was just going to swim for the love of the sport,\u201d she said. \u201cI was really excited to be back on home soil. I hadn’t done that in two years at that point. So I had no expectations. I just wanted to have some fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s why, when minutes after touching the wall in second place to Kylie Masse<\/strong> in the 200 backstroke, with a time of 2:09.38 that was a tidy 1.01 under the Olympic A cut, Rathwell allowed a pregnant pause that spoke volumes when the CBC broadcast asked her what went into her preparation.<\/p>\n

\u201cUmm,\u201d Rathwell allowed, a couple of glances around the deck groping for the right words, \u201cit\u2019s kind of been an up and down path.\u201d<\/p>\n