Alex Walsh, a rising sophomore at the University of Virginia, held a press conference last week in her hometown of Nashville in conjunction with the Nashville Aquatic Club that she trained at as an age grouper.
The interviews came after Walsh, a member of the USA Swimming National Team, qualified for her first Olympic Team after winning the 200 IM in Omaha.
She swam a new best time of 2:08.87 in the semi-finals that makes her the 19th-best performer in history. She wound up swimming slower, 2:09.30, in the final to win by .02 seconds, with just .04 seconds separating her from the third-place finisher Madisyn Cox – the narrowest Olympic Trials margin in the history of the event.
While the moment was the biggest success of her career so far, Walsh says that she was still learning throughout the meet.
“This last week has been really emotional, with the highs and lows of ‘I just made the team’ and then my sister didn’t make the team and that was really hard to deal with,” Walsh said.
Her younger sister, Gretchen Walsh, finished 12th in the semi-finals of the women’s 100 fly before bouncing back for a 7th-place finish in the 50 free later in the meet.
“But then also I’ve seen other swimmers who were…going in they had such high expectations; they didn’t meet those expectations, but then they came back at the end of the meet,” Alex Walsh continued. “Like Simone Manuel, for example. She just missed making the semi-final (in the 100 free) and then made the Olympics in the 50. And even my sister, who didn’t do as well. and then she made the final in the 50. I want to kind of take that and if I don’t perform as well as I wanted to, still give myself an opportunity to be better and do something good.”
“I think seeing people coming back from failures in such a short turnaround like that has really honestly inspired me and showed me that one performance doesn’t just impact everything, so I want to take that lesson and bring it to Tokyo.”
Alex Walsh also reflected on a moment where her father, Robert Walsh, helped her refocus before the semifinals.
“I was really nervous for semi-finals, honestly more than I was for the finals, and I remember I was in my room and I was really upset and my dad came in.
“He was like ‘this is your race, you do this all the time, you’re so good at this, just go out there and just leave it in the pool. It’s only semis, all you have to do is final.’
“So that made me feel a lot more confident and obviously yeah I just wanted to put myself in a good position for the final and so I think getting the best time, I was really happy with that, and then putting myself as the top seed made my confidence go up a lot and really my approach going into the finals was like, I just have to go fast from the get-go and just leave it in the pool. And I think I did that. It hurt really badly at the end.”
Watch the full interview with Alex Walsh and her parents below:
Her mom’s so geeked the smile is going to explode
You knew she was going to #sendit
She’s beautiful and well spoken. I’m so excited for her and Kate. They will represent us well.
There’s been a few comments about female members of the team being beautiful over the last few days. Not sure if it was you every time to be fair, but can we keep comments about a person’s looks off this site. It’s completely unnecesssary and irrelevant, even if you think you are being nice. They are sports people.
Okay so it’s not okay to call someone beautiful or give compliments anymore? Want it to be something negative?….
Just do not comment on looks. Pretty simple.
Says who?
How shocking that the same people taking issue with a black woman’s podium protest also take issue with being told not to comment on a woman’s looks.
😂😂
Yet its fine when everyone on this site (presumably some female commenters) drool over the male swimmers they find attractive and hunky–like Dressel, Seliskar, and Murphy? What people have said about Walsh to compliment about her looks are tame compared to some of the things I saw during OTs about members of the men’s team.
For the record, I don’t have an issue with either cases. Just pointing out the hypocrisy. Btw, from contacts on the UVA team, I hear she has a boyfriend. So sorry, y’all are out of luck.
I’m not female 👀
As long as it doesn’t go into the territory of being creepy/objectifying I don’t see the issue. She’s a very talented athlete who also happens to be a knockout in the looks department, don’t see an issue with saying that.
It always strikes me that some of the female swimmers I would recognize without their caps and in street clothes, while others I would have no clue. Alex Walsh would be in the no clue category. She looks like a model and sounds like a spokesperson. If that’s bad I’m willing to be bad
Maybe hold back with the teenagers? Just an idea.
Well-spoken? Every other word she says is “like”.
She should not be commenting about specific swimmers by name (other than perhaps her sister) who did not meet high expectations at Trials. Really bad rookie form.
Yeah dood. Can’t wait until they get her into camp and put her through “media training” to teach her how to stop saying anything interesting at all like the rest of our Olympic stars! Then she’ll be a real pro!
[/sarcasm]
She did not mention anyone else in that aspect besides her sister (and praising Simone Manuel.) please don’t be so critical.
Charisma is a better word that can be applied to all swimmers (and Olympians). It is certainly what advertisers will look for.
With all the craziness over that Trials week, and even with how bummed I was for Cox, Walsh / Douglass reppin’ us in the 200 IM seems right. They were getting the versatility headlines all NCAA season long. If those two were going to each qualify for just 1 event for the Olympics, 200 IM was the appropriate one.
When there were promising youngsters in the event I admittedly played the villain by rooting against all the marginal veterans, including Margalis and Cox. The only two who really annoyed me were Litherland sneaking through and also Schmitt. BTW, the same strategy worked wonderfully in the track and field trials. One elite newcomer after another advanced including a high school kid in the men’s 200
This comment of mine went from 11+ / 1- all the way to 14+ / 18- … looks like I triggered someone. LOL
I have now heard a few times people saying that the US trials are more competitive than the Olympics. Anyone knows why? Are they just exaggerating?
Yes.
It’s a carry-over trope from a brief era between the East German doping regime and the increased globalization of the sport where the US totally dominated. But, it’s not true anymore – and hasn’t been for a while.
It is fair to say that it is the most competitve trials meet by a significant margin. Especially as there are no wildcards to be handed. There is the odd event that might have a third place finisher who has Olympic medal potential but that is the same in Austrailia in some events.
And by “tougher” I think they just mean more mentally draining than the Olympics. Obviously the Olympics is actually more competitive
Probably mentally if the goal is to make the team – so best time doesn’t matter if not either being first or second.
Also, a swimmer may qualified to swim a few events and that added to the decision or burden of which event to focus on and which one to give up.
Many times the 3rd place finisher at US trials could’ve won a medal at the Olympics.
It’s the stress of not qualifying for the Summer Olympics that is mentally draining.
Shes so badddd😋😋
on brand georgia swimmers