Laura then asks Natalie to share her most memorable and toughest moments in her career, including winning the hundred-back in Beijing and feeling isolated during the 2012 Games.
She then discusses how she prepared for the 20 Olympics, keeping her cool when the media were pushing retirement, and circling back to that early injury and how it helped her keep swimming in perspective. Natalie then shares how it felt when other swimmers started nipping at her heels, firing up her competitiveness, and the mindset she gets into when preparing to compete. She also discusses how becoming a gold medalist led to more media attention and street recognition, how the Michael Phelps phenomenon helped shield her from the worst of that, and how she managed to achieve a happy medium of attention for her record-breaking success. She talks about qualifying for the 2004 Olympics and the relief when she did, followed by the experience of winning her first gold medal and the positive impact that had on her confidence and ability to stay calm while competing. Next, Natalie discusses how she chose which college to attend (eventually ending up at Cal, Berkeley) and the choices she made in her career post-injury, including ditching the two-hundred-meter backstroke and transitioning to sprint events. She then relates how she suffered a torn labrum in the run-up to qualifying for the 2000 Olympics team, the effect that had on her mindset and perspective, and her choice to avoid surgery and recover through physical rehab. First up, Natalie shares how she got into swimming at a young age and how her natural competitiveness drove her to break onto the swimming scene at just thirteen. During the episode, we jump into how her story began, her fierce competitiveness, and an injury that changed her whole perspective on swimming. As impressive as her achievements are, Natalie’s also just a really cool, down-to-earth person who’s so much fun to talk to. Her achievements also include winning eleven out of a possible twelve individual NCAA titles, being NCAA Swimmer of the Year three years in a row, and winning a total of sixteen medals in major international competitions (twenty-five gold, twenty-two silver, and thirteen bronze) spanning the Olympics, the World Championships, the Pan-Pacific Championships, and the Pan-American Games. And as if that wasn’t enough, Natalie was also the first woman ever to swim the hundred-meter backstroke in less than a minute. Natalie has won twelve Olympic medals and twenty World Championship medals she was the first US woman to win six medals at a single Olympic Games and the first woman to win back-to-back Olympic gold medals in the same event and consecutive Olympics. Laura’s guest on today’s episode is record-breaker, trailblazer, and history-maker Natalie Coughlin.
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