Q&A with an Olympian - Kate Douglass Returns to the Club

What is your pre-swim meet routine the night before?

I always just try to make sure I got a lot of sleep. I feel like I've realized how much sleep helps my body recover. [I make sure] I'm in bed early and that, I get a good meal and I've started eating. I feel like when I was in high school, I didn't like eating before getting in the water because, like, my stomach would hurt. And it just doesn't feel good to have a big meal before you swim. But now that I've gotten older, I feel like I try to get a good meal in before going to like a warmup. Because you're at a meet for a really long period of time, sometimes a few hours.

What motivates you to keep going when you fail along the way?

When you set goals for yourself, even if you fail, I feel like, you know, you still want to try to accomplish those goals. So even if I have a bad race or a bad time, I still have those goals in the back of my mind that I want to accomplish.

And so that keeps me going. And I also think being around my teammates helps because I'm like, you know, if they can also have these hard times and failures and get through it and still just enjoy the moment…that's kind of what it's all about. Like I'm here to enjoy I'm not here to just swim.

And so I feel like thinking about just thinking about other people sometimes can help you, you know, focus less on your own failures.

What is your motto or inspirational saying that you tell yourself?

I don't really have one, but when I I get up on the block and I kind of just try to talk really positive to myself. And recently I feel like I get up on the block and I'm like, this is your shit. And I just tell myself that, so that when I dive in, I'm like, I like this. This is it. Like, this is my shit. And so that's kind of what I've been telling myself on the block.

Did you ever feel paralyzed by doubt, and if so, how did you push through it?

I definitely have felt a lot of doubt in myself. I definitely think in recent years I've learned how to gain confidence in myself at meets and like, I'm not afraid to set big goals for myself and be confident that I can achieve those if I work towards them.

I think before Tokyo, going into those Olympic trials, I was really unsure if I'd make the team and I was really afraid of setting a goal of making the Olympic team, because I was afraid of disappointing myself. And I think I've gotten past that now. Just by gaining confidence and knowing it is okay to also set these goals and be slightly disappointed.

How important is self-confidence (but not arrogance) and trust in yourself?

I think Tokyo was kind of the start. Making that team was really a shock to me that I had made it. I just kind of, again, didn't want to set that goal for myself. And so I feel like from there I was kind of like, okay, like I do belong here in this elite group of swimmers, like I [do] belong on the national team and with these people.

And yeah, from there, I feel like that helped me be able to work harder in practice and set bigger goals for myself in practice. And then that kind of just translated to meets. And obviously, seeing myself succeed in the pool helped my confidence grow more.

I try to be really self-confident like getting up on the block and going out to races, but I feel like I keep that very internal.

And I'm not really like outwardly confident and obnoxious before race. And I try to channel that confidence into supporting my friends and just kind of having a good time with them. And yeah, I like getting my friends hyped up [and] keeping things fun and chill before race. I feel like that's kind of how I channel that energy.

Did you ever hit a plateau in swimming, at what age, and what did you do to overcome it?

I definitely think in high school, probably towards the end of my high school career, I feel like I hit a little plateau in something where I had I had goals that I wasn't really achieving. And I feel like I kind of lost my love for the sport a little bit.

But then I started to look at other goals for myself, like I started to look forward to swimming in college and looking forward to [the] change there. And then I got to college and was kind of excited to just be there. Excited for all these new training schedule and new life at college and that helped me change things up a little bit.

And I kind of figured out how to love the sport again and how to figure out how to grow as a swimmer. It's definitely tough when you kind of hit a plateau and you don't think you're getting better. But I think the trick is just to keep working hard and know that one day it will click and then you will start to see improvement.

When I got to college, I honestly don't think I swam breaststroke at all my first year, but then my second year, the coaches put me in one heat and I ended up doing well and everyone was like, why have you never done this before? And I was like, I don't really know.

Like I think I just decided not to one year. So then, yeah, obviously I was like, wait, I should maybe try this again. And it ended up, you know, working out.

I really just like, struggled with my love for the sport and even like my first year in college, like I just had a hard time figuring out how to kind of love, like the everyday grind and working hard in practice and it took a lot of time and like a lot of talks with my coaches at UVA to try to figure it out. I feel like my coaches kind of instilled this in me. And now it's kind of like how I now go about training. But the idea that, like, you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable in practice and for a while I got uncomfortable in practice, I was just like, I hate this. Like, my body hurts, this is hard and I don't want to do this anymore.. And so, once I finally got past the and realized that when I was uncomfortable in practice, that was when I got better at gaining things from practice. I started to love that feeling. And now when I go into practice and it's like, easy, I'm like, I'm not getting anything out of this. And so things have totally changed in that way for me. But that obviously took a lot of time and yeah, just a lot of practice and trying to like, love that feeling of like hurting and it being hard.

What habit or habits in the water do you attribute your success to?

Not worrying too much about [my] times in practice. And there's been a lot of times where, like, I go into practice and I'm getting beat by the other girls and my times aren't as good as I would like them to be, and I feel like I'm able to now just be like, as long as I'm giving the effort that is needed in the practice, I'm still getting something out of it.

It’s not the end of the world If I'm not having the best practice in the pool. I feel like, knowing that as long as you're putting the effort in, you're getting what you need out of it. And I think that's helped me be successful and happier in practice. So my habit is, is trying hard every day.

What is one outcome of winning Olympic medals you did not expect?

I noticed this more after my first Olympics… noticing how many kids looked up to me, I wasn't really expecting that. Because when I was a kid I would go and meet Olympians and get autographs and stuff, I never thought that that would be me and it was kind of a shock when I came back from Tokyo and all these kids told me like I was their role model and looked up to me and stuff. And I thought that was just the coolest thing.

ABOUT KATE DOUGLASS:

• 2-time Olympian; 5-time Olympic medalist (2 gold, 2 silver, 1 bronze)
• 14-time world championships medalist (four gold, five silver, five bronze). Two-time 200m individual medley world champion (2023, 2024).
• 12-time world short course championships medalist (seven gold, four silver, one bronze).
• 15-time NCAA champion, competing for University of Virginia.
• In 2024, became only the second American female swimmer to break 24 seconds for 50m freestyle (after Simone Manuel, 23.97 in 2017), clocking 23.91 to take the silver medal at the world championships in Doha (QAT).
• In 2024, became the fourth fastest female swimmer in history in the 200m breaststroke clocking two minutes, 19.30 seconds in Knoxville, TN (USA), breaking Rebecca Soni's national record set at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

CHELSEA PIER AQUATICS CLUB (CP-AC):

Chelsea Piers Athletic Club in Stamford, CT is the home of Chelsea Piers Aquatics Club (CP-AC) one of Connecticut's most successful competitive swim teams. CP-AC offers opportunities for all levels of swimmer from the 7-year-old beginner to the 18-year-old National Qualifier. Every aspect of a swimmer's career is considered, including but not limited to: nutritional education, mental approach to training and racing, dry land exercise (including injury prevention circuits and strength & conditioning routines), and a strong emphasis on technical proficiency in the water.

Learn more about the Chelsea Piers Aquatics Club here.