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Simone Manuel Considered Retirement After Tokyo: “2021 was a very painful experience”

2024 PRO SWIM SERIES – KNOXVILLE

Simone Manuel sat down with the media during the 2024 Pro Swim in Knoxville where she reflected on her last 3 years in swimming.

After being diagnosed with Overtraining Syndrome in the spring of 2021 and still making the 2021 Olympic Team that June, Manuel had to take a long break from swimming, when she had time to reflect and decide if she wanted to continue competing in the pool.

The 2016 Olympic champion said she considered it briefly, not only after how painful trying to compete while not being at her best had been but also having to endure constant criticism throughout the process.

However, Manuel is back to competing, swimming very promising times at both the US Open in December and the Knoxville Pro Swim this weekend. Manuel is learning to give herself time and grace while reaclimating to racing at the highest level.

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Ice Age Swimmer
10 months ago

I have tremendous respect for Simone’s athletic accomplishments, as well as her genuine personal integrity. I just wanted to add that there is an overlap of symptoms between overtraining syndrome and vaccine induced myocarditis/pericarditis. It has hit the world of professional football.(soccer) very hard. Fatigue, exercise, intolerance, elevated heart rate, even at rest, feelings of malaise and depression, reactivation of Epstein-Barr syndrome and shingles, etc. in extreme cases, causing cardiac arrest or hospitalization. It is obvious from bloodwork and elevated levels of troponin that heart damage has occurred. However, in milder cases, it is not always caught. I am not doubting Simone‘s personal interpretation of events, nor am I dismissing anything conveyed to her by her medical team. I am… Read more »

Troyy
Reply to  Ice Age Swimmer
10 months ago

Simone’s symptoms started in January 2021 when it was very unlikely she’d been vaccinated yet.

Breezeway
10 months ago

The greatest American female freestyle sprinter EVER! And it’s not even f’ing close.

Swimz
Reply to  Breezeway
10 months ago

She was…but now..it is KD. Douglas owns the fastest relay split by an american. 51.79 and multiple sub 53s.
Waiting to see who will be the spring star of the year..2021 ot was abby..2022 it was huske..2023 it was Douglas..

Bignowhere
Reply to  Swimz
10 months ago

How many freestyle Olympic gold medals has KD won?

Troyy
Reply to  Swimz
10 months ago

KD is nowhere near Simone’s achievements.

Emily Se-Bom Lee
Reply to  Swimz
10 months ago

no, she is. best ever means best at any point in time. douglass hasn’t come close to 2016-19 manuel

Aquajosh
10 months ago

I hope she swims for as long as she wants to, but I hope she’s also learned to have grace with herself if she never gets back to those times. Simone is cerebral like Caeleb, and that can very much be a double-edged sword.

Tea rex
10 months ago

I’m a fan and hope Manuel swims as long as she enjoys sit and not a year longer. Her legacy is solid.

Also, it’s like only a matter of time until Simones Biles and Manuel do a podcast, right? Both are from Houston…

DidItForDale
10 months ago

Criticism =/= vitriol

Admin
Reply to  DidItForDale
10 months ago

I do agree with you, that not all criticism is vitriol.

That being said, in this case, there was a TON of vitriol. Anyone who spent any time on Twitter definitely saw it. As the person who has the pleasure of moderating comments here, I can also tell you that there was vitriol I had to delete. Don’t really have a good estimate at what percentage of the criticism was vitriol.

swimtuck
Reply to  DidItForDale
10 months ago

You can tell the kind of person someone is from comments like that.

Like yeah, we all know that criticism and vitriol are not necessarily the thing. But anyone who lives in the world these days and doesn’t think that a black swimmer was subjected to vitriol for a diagnoses of overtraining syndrome is being dishonest at best.

DidItForDale
Reply to  swimtuck
10 months ago

This SwimSwam article specifically (and briefly) mentioned criticism, not vitriol, unless it’s in the video. Hence my comment.

My concern is that any perceived vitriol now invalidates any other criticism and that term gets to be used more loosely.

Alaverga
10 months ago

As always, I feel so deeply for these outrageously talented people who have experienced criticism. The horror.

Steve Nolan
Reply to  Alaverga
10 months ago

Hey everybody, look, it’s someone who doesn’t get it and refuses to try.

“Criticism” is not the issue here, and really obfuscates and minimizes what was.

ALEXANDER POP-OFF
10 months ago

I agree with those that say Simone is a true inspiration and that her legacy is secure. This was such a powerful interview. Part of what makes her truly great is her immense mental strength as a swimmer, public figure and person in the face of great adversity.

It’s also important to say that this very space— the comment section of this site— is precisely what she is calling out as a source of vitriol.

Manuel fan
10 months ago

Her story is inspirational and important to share. Manuel is brave to show her vulnerability in front of the world and in this interview. Having no roadmap to recovery is incredibly difficult, especially with a syndrome as poorly understood as overtraining. The swimming world doesn’t know how common nonfunctional overreaching and overtraining are, which is a huge disservice to the sport. These cause burnout and early retirement so often that these consequences have been normalized and swimmers are usually blamed for weakness. The burden is on the swimmers to prove themselves and persuade others that they aren’t just lazy or making it up, as Manuel alludes to.

If you Google overtraining, there are multiple articles, podcasts, etc about it… Read more »

About Coleman Hodges

Coleman Hodges

Coleman started his journey in the water at age 1, and although he actually has no memory of that, something must have stuck. A Missouri native, he joined the Columbia Swim Club at age 9, where he is still remembered for his stylish dragon swim trunks. After giving up on …

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