Regan Smith on Training Under Bowman, Chasing the Perfect Taper, and the Road Ahead
The SwimSwam PodcastShow Notes
In this GMM takeover of the SwimSwam Podcast, we sit down with 8-time Olympic medalist Regan Smith after a 2026 season that has been fast, revealing and, at times, frustrating. At the Pan Pacific Championships, Regan came away with gold in the 200 backstroke, silver in the 50 and 100 back, and a fourth-place in the 200 IM. But the results don’t tell the whole story. In both of her signature backstroke events, Regan was faster in prelims than in the final. She went 57.86 in the 100 back prelim before finishing second in 58.11, then dropped a 2:04.13 in the 200 back prelim before winning the final in 2:05.57. For one of the most consistent swimmers in the world, that morning-to-night disconnect stands out. We dig into what happened at Pan Pacs and what Regan learned from it. And Regan is her on own harshest critic. In this podcast she's thinking through her season, noting her frustration that she trained repeated 8k color sets ahead of the Fort Lauderdale Open and ripped a 57.4 100m back--but tapers for Pan Pacs and doesn't get under 58 at night in the finals. Through that lens, we look back at 2026 and the bigger picture. Regan has been remarkably consistent in the 100 back, repeatedly racing in the 57-second range while carrying a heavy training load. In the 200 back, she is once again approaching the 2:03.35 lifetime best she set as a 17-year-old in 2019. And the most interesting developments happened outside Regan’s traditional events. She set lifetime bests this year in the 200 freestyle (1:56.9) and 400 IM (4:35.7), while also producing elite times of 55.94 in the 100 fly and 2:04.73 in the 200 fly. We ask about her expanding event range and how it figures into her training and schedule under coach Bob Bowman.
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